Photographs of Mother Teresa's Missions of Charity in Calcutta, India

Socially conscious images have formed one of the dominant themes of photography throughout the twentieth century. Contemporary documentary photography has come to be valued not only for the information it conveys about its subject and the problems of the modem world, but also for what it reveals about the photographic medium and for the aesthetic experience it brings to its viewers.Mark was sent by Life magazine in 1978 to photograph the Missions of Charity in Calcutta. Mother Teresa, the order's founder and leader, had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the photographs were to accompany a feature article on the woman. In January 1981 she returned to Calcutta for a two-month stay. Photographs from both of these intensive periods of work are the subject of this book.