Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

Finding the right subject is the hardest part.

Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality.

I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.

I'm interested in reality, and I'm interested in survival. I'm interested in people who aren't the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story.

It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.

Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society.

Reality is always extraordinary.

I was fascinated by my own prom pictures.

I’m just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven’t had the best breaks in society. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence.

I respect newspapers but the reality is that magazine "photojournalism" is finished. They want illustrations, Photoshopped pictures of movie stars.

One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work.

A great photograph needs no explanation; it functions by suggestion. There is no need to be explicit.

In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.

If you are interested in photography because you love it and are obsessed with it, you must be self-motivated, a perfectionist, and relentless.

The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.

I work in colour sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white - I like the abstraction of it.

I wanted to travel from the beginning. As a kid, I used to dream about airplanes, before I ever flew in one.

The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.

I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is.

I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient.

Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It's not really photography.

That's the way I learned photography: You make your picture in the camera. Now, so much is made in the computer. ... I'm not anti-digital, I just think, for me, film works better.

Everyone asks me how I get my subjects to open up to me. There’s no formula to it. It’s just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people - of being yourself.

If I hadn't become a photographer, I would have loved to become a doctor. I would have loved to have done something that actually helped people and changed their lives.

I always wanted to photograph the universal subjects.

I think the prom is very serious also. It's an American ritual, it's a rite of passage, and it's very much a part of this country.

When I started out, it was considered very wrong to change an image. There were scandals if someone inserted a sky into a war picture or something. Now it's all about that.

Im just interested in what makes a photograph.

Sometimes I work on film sets. I've done this for 40 years. I always wanted to photograph on the set of an Ingmar Bergman film. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity.

I go into every story thinking I'm going to fail. I think about that all the time - I think it's going to be terrible. Every story is like the first I've ever done.

I'm a street photographer, but I'm interested in any ironic, whimsical images, and there's something very romantic about a circus.

During prom season, I travel around the country with a 20-by-24 camera - which is logistically complicated - and photograph proms. My husband made a film of it.