Mark story photographer biography video

Mark Story knows faces.

In his 23 years as an A-list commercial director Story sat through thousands and thousands of casting sessions.

“I was always looking for interesting faces,” says Story, who specialized in comedy commercials and was one of the first directors to use people who were not professional actors.

“For comedy I fell in love with very old people,” he says. “They were unpretentious, fresh and extremely funny.”

During that time, the now-retired director, established a unique style and comedy esthetic.

He made more than 2,500 commercials for such companies as Volkswagen, Budweiser and Little Caesars Pizza.

“He was a kind of the Steven Spielberg of the advertising world,” says Dann Hall, owner of the Hallans Gallery in Sandpoint, where a selection of Story’s black-and-white photographs are on exhibit through Sept.

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The 20 images on view are from Story’s recently published monologu