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" I always think, 'What does this picture mean? What's the best place to put my camera? Do I have anything extra in the picture, things in the background that will distract? Am I in the basic position that will give the essential things for this picture but not too much?' "

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" What I'm trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood... that cross cultural lines. I want my photographs to be about the basic emotions and feelings that we all experience. "

Mary Ellen Mark

Feelings

Trying

Experience

" When you're working on a film, it's almost like photographing paintings at a museum. You're photographing somebody else's world. I just try and interpret it and make it real, and make it what the actors are about, what the director is about, and what the film is about. "

" I don't relax. I can't take vacations. I'm obsessive-compulsive, and I worry with every project that I'm going to fail. When it starts to go well, and I sense that something beautiful and important and meaningful is being created, it's a fantastic feeling, and I find it very hard to stop. "

" A lot of people who don't have anything collect dogs; it's kind of a symbol of having something. "

" I'm not much for cats. I'm terrified of mice. I've worked a lot with elephants, and they are extremely intelligent and sensitive, and thankfully, they seem to like me. You never want to get on the bad side of an elephant. And never trust a chimp. "

" I don't see how a woman in documentary photography could have children. I think it's a very difficult thing to do to raise a family, and I have enormous respect for people who do it. I'd hate to do something like that and not be good at it. "

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

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

" I love to photograph people in their own environment. It offers clues to what's important in their lives. "

" I'm not against digital photography. It's great for newspapers. And there are photographers doing great work digitally. When they use Photoshop as a darkroom tool, that's fine, too. But at this point of my life, after so many years, I don't really want to change, and I still love film. "

" 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 was fascinated by my own prom pictures. "

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

" I'm most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That's my forte. "

" I've always been interested in photographing traditions and customs - especially in America. The prom is an American tradition, a rite of passage that has always been one of the most important rituals of American youth. It is a day in our lives that we never forget - a day full of hopes and dreams for our future. "

" I don't like to photograph children as children. I like to see them as adults, as who they really are. I'm always looking for the side of who they might become. "

" 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. "

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

" I was something of a problem kid. I was emotional, wild, rebellious at school. I'm very touched by kids who don't have advantages; they are much more interesting than kids who have everything. They have a lot of passion and emotion, such a strong will. "

" I'm just interested in what makes a photograph. "

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

" I knew from the first moment I picked up a camera, on my first school assignment, what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was going to find a way to travel the world and tell the stories of the people I met through photographs. "

" What you look for in a picture is a metaphor, something that means something more, that makes you think about things you've seen or thought about. "

Mary Ellen Mark

Look

Think

" I don't like gimmicky pictures; I've always hated them. I like pictures that are very clear and clean, whether you're a great street photographer - somebody like Friedlander or Winogrand or Cartier-Bresson - or whether you're a portraitist, like Irving Penn. "

" There are some people who become best friends with everyone they photograph. There are people that I really like and admire and respect, but in a way I think it's better to keep a distance. I think you get better pictures of people that you don't know very well. "

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

" You don't need to retouch if you know how to light. "

" Reality is always extraordinary. "

" 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. "

" Every photograph is the photographer's opinion about something. It's how they feel about something: what they think is horrible, tragic, funny. "