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Mark Makela

@markmakela

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Boulder, CO based photojournalist. @gettyimages @nytimes @reuters @washingtonpost contributor. Seeker of beauty in obscurity. Father of two. 49ers fan

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Portraits of love from yesterdays festival finale:
...where 16 year olds gazed at one another as though exchanging matrimonial vows; a 3 year old was already being taught the guitar; and a couple of 24 year olds kissed in the mountain creek, carefully clutching a mint chocolate chip cone.
There was devotion for $6 dollar slices beside delectable dumplings; I saw the pure verve for dancing in a young girl with illuminated angel wings; a newborn embraced backstage, bathed in cherry-hued splendor; and the quiet, or an intimate detail of a seated couple touching at the secondary stage while the music played on.
The exuberant, whiskey-soaked honky tonk of Junior Brown handed the baton perfectly to the searing lyrical precision of David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, whose own harmonious heights are a living product of the love they share with everyone who attends.
So inspired was I, that I didn’t want the three days to end, though all the captured sights and songs will surely sustain me until the 37th annual @rockymountainfolksfestival next August. @gettyimages taken in Lyons, Colorado by @markmakela

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2 months ago

Scenes from the magical 36th Rocky Mountain Folk Festival, headlined yesterday by Valerie June and Ani DiFranco. Set in the small Rocky Mountain town of Lyons where a creek runs through it, there is a pure, poetic alchemy to the way the music and ambient air reverberate off the towering red rock cliffs, making it feel as though the entire canyon has slipped anchor and transported us straight back to the late sixties. @gettyimages #rockymountainfolksfestival #planetbluegrass taken in Lyons, Colorado by @markmakela

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2 months ago

America’s sestercentennial in the forgotten high plains. 40,000 spectators, long horn cattle, Griswold family station wagon, 120 floats, the largest parade in the state, and naval cadets running front page today @nytimes #🇺🇸🎂 #murica #nytassignment taken in Greeley, Colorado by @markmakela

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3 months ago

getting after it on a Monday morning #Mimiateight @furrymakela by @markmakela

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4 months ago

I’m a photographer, but somehow I didn’t spot my son amid the 50,000 runners taking part in the 47th annual BOLDERBoulder this morning on Memorial Day. He ran a time to be proud of. Many found the neighborhood slip and slide impossible to resist. #BoulderBoulder taken in Boulder, Colorado by @markmakela

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5 months ago

Lightning struck the Comanche National Grassland and 28,800 acres of the southeasternmost corner of Colorado and the neighboring Oklahoma Panhandle burned this week. Pink fire retardant painted the drought stricken rangeland in vast Rothkoesque swaths. A ranch house completely razed, a rancher who lost pasture but kept working, 95 calves branded the next morning while the burn scar sat on the horizon. On the drive home a smoke filtered rainbow formed over grazing cattle amid the worst drought in Mountain West history. @reuters #SharpeFire taken in Campo, Colorado by @markmakela

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5 months ago

Spent the weekend exploring the parched heart of Baca County, in the southeastern most corner of Colorado, documenting the worst drought in Mountain West history. Two Buttes Reservoir, normally 700 acres and 25 feet deep, sprawls completely dry, thousands of dead fish baking in the sun where water once teemed with life. Ninety years after this land was ground zero of the American Dust Bowl, the cycle has returned, prompting Governor Jared Polis to activate Phase 2 of the state’s Drought Response Plan two months ago.

Vance Alfrey, 84, still climbs his corral gates on 800 acres of land. His family has ranched here since 1916, and standing beside the family cabin he regaled me with a riveting story of his grandparents and parents huddling inside during the great black blizzards of 1935 and 1936, stuffing wet rags under the doors to keep the dust out as a three mile high wall of dust turned the sky black for half an hour at a time. That cabin still stands. So does the old red barn beside it, its paint peeling but its bones intact, survivors of the same drought now returning. Six generations of cowboys who stayed when enduring was the harder choice. Springfield, the impoverished county seat, holds on the same way. @gettyimages taken in Baca County by @markmakela

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5 months ago

Wading through 28 inches of snow in the mountains, and drifts mid thigh, a magical May snowstorm, among the largest ever recorded in Colorado’s history, transforms the Front Range in an achingly beautiful collision of seasons, answering the worst drought the state has seen since 1883. Covered Tuesday and Wednesday for @reuters and @gettyimages taken in Colorado by @markmakela

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5 months ago

Following the singing of this timeless Vietnam anti-war ballad by Buffalo Springfield, thousands of protestors marched yesterday afternoon during the No Kings march and visibility event. Organizers report that over 8 million demonstrators participated in the third nationwide “No Kings” protest held against the Trump administration. @gettyimages #gettyimagesnews #nokings #🚫👑 taken in Boulder, Colorado by @markmakela

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7 months ago

urban cammo on the morning commute #murica taken in Colorado by @markmakela

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8 months ago

What an honor to have my portrait placed A1 above the fold for Jesse Jackson, a pioneering figure, below a potent headline “A Thundering Voice for Civil Rights, With a Rainbow Vision” on my dogeared 4:47am doorstep delivered edition. Life’s amazing and here’s a case in point of capitalizing on the myriad opportunities all around us, with an interesting story on this photo opportunity. I was on an unrelated assignment covering a conference at the Philadelphia convention center in 2013. Photographing backstage, with a few moments in between the action, sure enough I spotted Jesse Jackson. I recall approaching him, introducing myself with a genial smile, mentioning the complementary Caravaggio light upon him, and we shared a laugh. Then I made a few portraits in less than a minute as he was about to take the stage to address the attendees. Clearly, I filed the portrait as part of my submission on my shoot that day. All these years later it lands front page. Banner day! #RIP #📰 @mynytimes by @markmakela

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8 months ago

demonstrators participate in a “No School,
No Work, No Shopping” protest against ICE “reign of terror” actions ongoing in Minnesota on January 30, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. Many similar demonstrations are occurring nationwide today in a uniformed display of collective protest. @gettyimages #gettyimagesnews taken in Denver, Colorado by @markmakela

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9 months ago