Photos by Mary Ellen Mark

Kathryn Shattuck writes:

In 1968, around the time she was focusing her lens on war protesters and transvestites in New York, Mary Ellen Mark took a job as a still photographer on the set of “Alice’s Restaurant,” directed by Arthur Penn.

More than 100 films later Ms. Mark culled thousands of images, both impromptu and staged, for her latest book, “Seen behind the scene/Forty years of photographing on set/Mary Ellen Mark” (Phaidon). Some of the images will be on view at the Staley-Wise Gallery in SoHo starting Jan. 9.

Here she speaks about photos included in the book.