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" I really knew when I started photographing I wanted it to be a way of knowing different cultures, not just in other countries but in this country, too, and I knew I wanted to be a voyeur. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Different Cultures
Just
Country
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" I have an incredible relationship with dogs. I'm kind of a dog-whisperer. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Relationship
Dogs
Incredible
" I would die if I had to be confined. I don't want to feel that I'm missing out on experiencing as much as I can. For me, experiencing is knowing people all over the world and being able to photograph. "
Mary Ellen Mark
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People
" One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Him
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Wish
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
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Life
Moment
" In every successful still photographic project that I have completed, there has always been a turning point in the story where I felt that perhaps I was working on something that could be very special. "
Mary Ellen Mark
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Story
Always
" I could spend my whole life photographing circuses. They combine everything I'm interested in - they're ironic, poetic, and corny at the same time. There's also something about a circus that's magical, sentimental, and almost tragic, like a Fellini film. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Circus
Magical
Film
" I remember the first time I went out on the street to shoot pictures. I was in downtown Philadelphia, and I just took a walk and started making contact with people and photographing them, and I thought, 'I love this. This is what I want to do forever.' There was never another question. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Love
Time
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" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Done
Work
Sometimes
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Pictures
You
Street
" Looking at my own prom photograph reminds me of how significant that moment was - and how fleeting life is. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Me
My Own
Own
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Director
Museum
Real
" I was fascinated by my own prom pictures. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Prom
My Own
Fascinated
" I saw that my camera gave me a sense of connection with others that I never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there but that was never explored before. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Me
Never
Curiosity
" I'm just interested in what makes a photograph. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Makes
Interested
Photograph
" Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Reality
Interesting
Nothing
" I'm just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven't had the best breaks in society. I'm always on their side. I find them more human, maybe. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Feel
Best
Want
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
School
Strong
Wild
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Friends
People
Think
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
My Life
Love
Life
" I was thinking about how fleeting and precious life is. Life is also arbitrary. For example, the choices that you make, the luck of being born into the right bed, to parents who support and help you and who love you. That doesn't always happen - and then, what happens when it doesn't? "
Mary Ellen Mark
Support
Luck
Love
" I've always been fascinated by twins. In my forty years of photographing, whenever there was an opportunity, I would take a picture of twins. I found the notion that two people could appear to look exactly alike very compelling. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Picture
Look
People
" I'm a street photographer, but I'm interested in any ironic, whimsical images, and there's something very romantic about a circus. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Photographer
Romantic
Street
" If I'm in an unusual or extreme social environment, I always want to know what it's like to grow up there and experience it as normal, everyday life. And I want to know what sort of adults these children are going to turn into. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Children
Environment
Experience
" Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It's not really photography. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Photography
Shots
Computers
" 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
" You don't need to retouch if you know how to light. "
Mary Ellen Mark
You
Need
Light
" I wanted to travel from the beginning. As a kid, I used to dream about airplanes, before I ever flew in one. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Dream
Used
Travel
" A lot of people who don't have anything collect dogs; it's kind of a symbol of having something. "
Mary Ellen Mark
People
Something
Kind
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Honest
You
Think
" Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Ideas
Work
Society