Mark Citret was born in 1949 in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in San Francisco. He began photographing seriously in 1968, and received both his BA and MA in Art from San Francisco State University. From 1970-1973, Citret attended the Ansel Adams workshop at Yosemite where he assisted Adams during workshops, in the field, and in the darkroom.

Along with his extensive work in the United States, Citret has photographed in the Czech Republic, northern Italy, and, in central France. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley for more than two decades, the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension since 1988, and for organizations such as the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Ansel Adams Gallery, and Santa Fe Workshops.

His work is represented in several galleries in the United States and is in collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography, and the Monterey Museum of Art. He currently lives in Daly City, California.

Artist Statement: After working with Ansel Adams in Yosemite, Mark Citret lived at and photographed the Halcott Center, a farming valley in New York's Catskill Mountains, for two years, which ultimately resulted in the publication of this book. A collection of photographs of a farm valley and its inhabitants, the book reveals the nuisances of life in the beautiful and rugged mountainscape. Conceived and photographed in the early to mid-1970s, the book waited nearly thirty years for publication.