Mary Ellen Mark Quotes
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To touch on people's lives [ in a way they ] haven't been touched on before, it´s fascianting. You know, it's one thing if [ a celebrity ] has an incredible character and you're really going to be able to delve into their personality – that's great. But you can never get real purity if people have been spoiled by the camera and don't trust you. I like feeling that I'm able to be a voice for those people who aren't famous, the people that don't have the great opportunities.
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A good print is really essential. I want to take strong documentary photographs that are as good technically as any of the best technical photographs, and as creative as any of the best fine-art photographs. [...] I don't want to just be a photo essayist; I'm more interested in single images...ones that I feel are good enough to stand on their own.
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If you are interested in photography because you love it and are obsessed with it, you must be self-motivated, a perfectionist, and relentless.
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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.
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In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.
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I was fascinated by my own prom pictures.
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The subject gives you the best idea of how to make a photograph. So I just wait for something to happen.
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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.
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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.
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Im just interested in what makes a photograph.
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I think you have to have a real point of view that's your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it's a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine's point of view because it's never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph [ the way] you believe it.
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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.
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The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.
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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.
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I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion... though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.
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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.
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I don't think you can develop or learn a way of seeing or a point of view. A way of seeing is who you are, how you think and how you create images. It is something that is inside of you. It's how you look at the world.
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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.
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It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.
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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.
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I think you reveal yourself by what you choose to photograph, but I prefer photographs that tell more about the subject. There's nothing much interesting to tell about me; what's interesting is the person I'm photographing, and that's what I try to show. [...] I think each photographer has a point of view and a way of looking at the world... that has to do with your subject matter and how you choose to present it. What's interesting is letting people tell you about themselves in the picture.
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I respect newspapers but the reality is that magazine "photojournalism" is finished. They want illustrations, Photoshopped pictures of movie stars.
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One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work.
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No, I don't think you're ever an objective observer. By making a frame you're being selective, then you edit the pictures you want published and you're being selective again. You develop a point of view that you want to express. You try to go into a situation with an open mind, but then you form an opinion, and you express it in your photographs.
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A great photograph needs no explanation; it functions by suggestion. There is no need to be explicit.
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Reality is always extraordinary.
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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.
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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.
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It's just a matter of who you are and how you talk to people. Your subjects will trust you only if you're confident about what you're doing. It really bothers me when photographers first approach a subject without a camera, try to establish a personal relationship, and only then get out their cameras. It's deceptive. I think you should just show up with a camera, to make your intentions clear. People will either accept you or they won't.
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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.
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