Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Related Quotes:
" 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
" I love to photograph people in their own environment. It offers clues to what's important in their lives. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Love
People
Important
" 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?' "
Mary Ellen Mark
Camera
Best
Picture
" 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
Walk
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Worry
Stop
Beautiful
" 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
School
Life
Moment
" 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 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 love dogs. I absolutely adore them. When I'm teaching in Mexico, I rescue dogs from the streets and make my students adopt them. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Streets
Love
Mexico
" 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
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
See
Looking
Children
" I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Heart
Where
Soul
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Cats
Trust
You
" I think photography is closest to writing, not painting. It's closest to writing because you are using this machine to convey an idea. The image shouldn't need a caption; it should already convey an idea. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Photography
Writing
Think
" Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It's not really photography. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Photography
Shots
Computers
" 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
" One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Him
Work
Wish
" 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
" The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Mine
Human
People
" I'm most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That's my forte. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Finding
Reality
Most
" You don't need to retouch if you know how to light. "
Mary Ellen Mark
You
Need
Light
" 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. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Day
Youth
Future
" I was fascinated by my own prom pictures. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Prom
My Own
Fascinated
" 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
Die
World
People
" 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
More
" 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'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
" Every photograph is the photographer's opinion about something. It's how they feel about something: what they think is horrible, tragic, funny. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Funny
Photograph
Opinion
" It's good that everyone has an opportunity to take pictures, the chance to be a photographer. Some are good, too. But the bad thing is that it's very, very difficult to take a great picture. Everyone can take a good picture - even a child - but it's hard to make a great one. "
Mary Ellen Mark
Great
Picture
Opportunity