Top Mary Ellen Mark Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Mary Ellen Mark Biography

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark (March 20, 1940 – May 25, 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism / documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes".

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Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

The difficulty with color is to go beyond the fact that it's color ? to have it be not just a colorful picture but really be a picture about something. It's difficult. So often color gets caught up in color, and it becomes merly decorative. Some photographers use it brilliantly to make visual statements combining color and content; otherwise it is empty.

Color, Colorful, Difficult, Make, Photography, Use

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.

Done, Like, Stories, Think, Thinking

I was fascinated by my own prom pictures.

Fascinated, My Own, Pictures, Prom

Finding the right subject is the hardest part.

Finding, Findings, Hardest, Part, Subject, Subjects

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

Love, Obsessed, Perfectionist, Photography, Self

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.

People, Reality, Survival, Surviving, Telling, Time

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.

Mind, Photographs, Published, Think, Thinking, Views

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.

Country, Passage, Prom, Rite, Serious, Thinking

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

Gives, Giving, Idea, Ideas, Subject, Waiting

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

Interesting, Photograph, Photography, Reality, World

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.

Cameras, Photography, Think, Thinking, Way

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.

Changed, Doctor, Doctors, Done, People

Learning how to use different formats has made me a better photographer. When I started working in medium format, it made me a better 35 mm photographer. When I started working in 4x5, it made me a better medium-format photographer.

Different, Format, Medium, Photographer, Use

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.

Considered, Image, Scandal, Sky, War

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.

Believe, Mistake, Real, Think, Way

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.

Character, Know, Lives, Opportunity, Real, Thing

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.

Admire, Distance, Friends, People, Respect, Thinking

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.

Being Yourself, Formula, Matter, Open, People, Subjects

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

Illustration, Magazine, Reality, Respect, Stars

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.

Looks, Point, Thinking, View, Views, Way

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