Mark Turner has always been passionate about photography.  He got his first camera as a child in West Virginia at age 7, upgraded to a Kodak Brownie Starmite (with flash!) when he was 9, learned to process and print his own black and white film around 7th grade, got his first 35mm camera in 9th grade, and was high school newspaper and yearbook photographer.

He only applied to one college, Rochester Institute of Technology, where he majored in photography and then graduated with a degree in audio-visual communication. Following a master’s in telecommunications from Kent State University, Mark worked as a television and interactive media producer for Nebraska Public Television and Western Washington University from 1979 to 1993. After Western laid him off, he returned to photography.

Mark’s work has been published on covers and inside magazines like Garden Design, Sunset, American Gardener, Horticulture, Organic Gardening, and Birds and Blooms as well as in numerous garden books.  He has three solo books. Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, an American Horticultural Society Book Award winner (co-authored with Phyllis Gustafson), Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest (co-authored with Ellen Kuhlmann), and Bellingham Impressions, a a soft-cover coffee-table book enjoyed by Bellingham lovers around the world.

When he’s not photographing people, gardens, or wildflowers, Mark is an active outdoors person.  He bicycles, kayaks, hikes, and climbs.  He was married for 35 years to Natalie, with whom he raised two boys, now married and on their own. He’s now married to Brian, also an active gardener and outdoors person.

Mark was featured in the January 2023 issue of Southside Living magazine. You can learn more about him in the story.