In 1971, Mark Stracke dropped out of NYU, not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. In 1977, he was asked to start a photography program here, at the Fieldston School. Now, he is retiring from his 46-year position as a photography instructor, which included 35 years as Chair of the Visual Arts department. Colleagues Nancy Banks and Maura Furfey noted that Stracke served under 8 principals, worked with 9 heads of school, guided 11 advisories to graduation, coached 25 golf and cross country teams and participated in 18 ALPS over his years at Fieldston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mark Stracke has been snapping pictures ever since his father purchased him a small development kit as a 14-year-old. \u201cPhotography has always been a constant for me,\u201d he said. At NYU, Stracke spent hours in the 770s aisle of the library flipping through photography books. College was not helping him settle on a career path, so he dropped out and moved into a loft in Soho with two friends and fellow artists. New York City was in a financial slump, businesses were failing, real estate markets were collapsing, industrialization had set in and once vibrant sections of the city were now neglected, abandoned and unpopular. In other words, Soho was ideal for artists, who could scoop up lofts for cheap rents or buy buildings at affordable prices (sometimes collectively). There, they started a movers business together, but one of his friends soon convinced him that if he didn\u2019t want to be a mover for the rest of his life, he should get a college degree. He knew he wanted to be an artist, but not necessarily a photographer. So, he re-entered NYU in 1974 to receive an art education degree. And that\u2019s where everything changed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke had an epiphany one day as he watched a picture slowly emerge in a developer. This was his \u201cta-da\u201d moment in film photography. He saw in an instant, what he had snapped days ago, suddenly reappeared as something tangible and beautiful \u2013 a work of art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke made it his life\u2019s work to bring this same satisfaction to students, an ironic statement given his unconventional road to teaching. He dropped out of NYU precisely because it was not helping him settle on a career, only to end up re-entering NYU to pursue a degree in art education. His friend and roommate in Soho had successfully convinced him that if he wished to pursue a career in art, or any other career for that matter (he was working as a mover at the time), he would need a college degree. His art education degree required that he spend time as a student teacher\/intern. He was presented with two options for this work: the High School of Art and Design, and Fieldston. He ended up choosing Fieldston for its familiarity \u2013 he went to a small private high school growing up and knew the independent school world. His teaching job here was his first out of college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rowhan Daly, a recently graduated Fieldston photography major, fondly recounts his years in Stracke\u2019s classes: \u201cBy taking us on a journey beginning with building our own pinhole cameras, working our way through film cameras, and eventually digital ones, Mr. Stracke helped us to learn and appreciate every small, seemingly unimportant detail behind each picture.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His colleague and faculty advisor to the Fieldston News, Bob Montera, with whom he coached cross country and \u201cran the lengths of Manhattan and the Bronx,\u201d noted that Stracke views the world with an intentional eye. \u201cWhen you run with Stracke you always see the landscape differently. You\u2019re constantly taking photos in your head.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montera went on to rave about Stracke\u2019s fine eye in other areas. \u201cThere are these technological moments when something new catches on, and he\u2019s the first one out of the gate. He was savvy with computers, the internet and the digital world long before others were. He pioneered their use at Fieldston in the Upper School and made it all user-friendly. Before Tech was a department, there was Stracke. Mark is a movie buff, and we ran ALPs on everything from Film Noir, Martin Scorsese, John Ford, Sidney Lumet, documentaries, New York City cinema, to Japanese cinema. He\u2019s always watched financial markets very closely and has all the instincts of a sound wealth manager. He is especially shrewd with real estate \u2013 he moved to Soho when few people wanted to live there, and then moved to Williamsburg when Soho grew too expensive. He ended up leaving Williamsburg for the same reason. This time for Riverdale.\u201d Montera takes this to mean that Riverdale will be the next hotspot. Can you imagine that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke was similarly ahead of the curve with interdisciplinary learning, working with English and history teachers, and with a class called ISS Interdisciplinary Senior Seminar with John Aune, Clare Mottola, Jon Lambert and Montera, which ran for a decade. \u201cTen students. Five teachers interlaced between them. Wholly student taught. The teachers acted like reference works when consultation was needed. Remarkable learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke\u2019s pedagogy is all about subtlety, appreciation for the creative process, and finding the extraordinary in the mundane. Though I appreciate well-shot photos, I\u2019ve always struggled to see the room for creative expression in the art form. Photographers capture things that already exist, as they exist; painters, sculptors, and filmmakers create images and their accompanying meanings. I asked Stracke where he sees creative decision-making in photography. He said he tells his students there are three main decisions when taking a photo, which he presented to me like a catechism \u2013 What is my subject, why am I interested in this subject, and how do I make this come across in my photo? \u201cWhere will the camera be when I take the picture?\u201d and \u201cWhen will I push the button?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThen there\u2019s the final output,\u201d Stracke said, the gears in his brain clearly turning. \u201cIs it a series or just a single picture? Is it gonna be a print, on a screen, etc.?\u201d He told me that beginning students tend to want to be done with the photograph as soon as they see it. But \u201ca lot of your signature and artistic expression,\u201d he said, \u201ccomes from how you take and develop your photos, to the point that you can identify the photographer from their work.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke described that photography in its most basic form is merely an endeavor to capture and remember a place in time. This alone can be quite powerful. He discussed how even the simplest photos can be such poignant timestamps, and, like a fine wine, deepen in meaning with age. Some of his old photographs of day-to-day life \u2013 people, storefronts, NYC street corners \u2013 would look totally different today. They bear witness to youth, gentrification, technological innovation and fashion trends. But Stracke encourages his students not to just mindlessly click the button at whatever’s in front of them, but to really think about what they want to capture and why. And then to make it come to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke\u2019s thoughtfulness is the backbone of his teaching style. \u201cHis ever-thoughtful and insightful personality allowed him to help us ensure our ideas and visions were truly captured in our work,\u201d remarked Daly. Montera shared this praise: \u201cHe knows how to bring out the best in the students, and he knows how to bring out the best in his colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke characterized his days here as a \u201cconstant learning process,\u201d highlighted by moments of \u201ccreative problem-solving.\u201d When I asked him what he loved about Fieldston, he answered without hesitation: \u201cWorking with the students\u2026and getting to think about photography a lot.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nancy Banks, Student Activities and history teacher, observed: \u201cMark can often be found \u2018teaching\u2019 his classes through conversation \u2013 he is always eliciting student ideas and opinions in order to help them understand various approaches to photography, and in this way has inspired generations of students who have gone on to be artists and photographers themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maura Furfey, Spanish language teacher, and Nancy Banks also said: \u201cHe is a fierce advocate for all of the arts at Fieldston, not as an add-on or extracurricular, but as a core part of the school\u2019s mission and as critical to student\u2019s growth as individuals. Mark is also a truth-teller \u2013 he never shies away from speaking truth to power, especially when it comes to students\u2019 engagement with the arts and interdisciplinary learning at Fieldston. Given the number of changes that have taken place over the years, we often find ourselves talking about the importance of institutional memory. If you truly want to understand the way Fieldston was and how it has evolved, for the better, talk to Mark Stracke. He knows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his retirement, he is most looking forward to having more time to take photos and to be able to travel to do so. Though he loved his time at Fieldston, he described it as an \u201call-encompassing job.\u201d No longer will his artistic projects \u2013 nature photographs from out his apartment window, trips to Cape Code, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine \u2013 be pushed to weekends and breaks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After such an illustrious career at Fieldston, there is no telling what Mark Stracke will accomplish in his retirement. But it\u2019s safe to say that as he\u2019s always been, he will always be \u201con the cutting edge of something.\u201d And he will never stop taking photos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stracke\u2019s Website: https:\/\/stracke.com\/<\/a> In 1971, Mark Stracke dropped out of NYU, not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. In 1977, he was asked to start a photography program here, at the Fieldston School. Now, he is retiring from his 46-year position as a photography instructor, which included 35 years as Chair of the Visual Arts department. Colleagues Nancy Banks and Maura Furfey noted that Stracke served under 8 principals, worked with 9 heads of school,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":7899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,347,426,318],"tags":[556,141,135],"coauthors":[410],"class_list":["post-7898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-community","category-faculty","category-news","tag-arts","tag-ecfs","tag-fieldston"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-23-at-3.51.37-PM-e1687550377783.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7898"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7903,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7898\/revisions\/7903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7898"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Stracke\u2019s Instagram Page: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/mark_stracke\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"