Sally Mann Quotes

Cameras always were seductive. And then a darkroom became available, and that's when I stopped doing anything else.

I can get obsessed by anything if I look at it long enough. That's the curse of being a photographer.

I fell in love with the darkroom, and that was part of being a photographer at the time. The darkroom was unbelievably sexy. I would spend all night in the darkroom.

I am a person who feels compelled and then gets immersed.

When I'm making a film, I'm obsessive about what I do, and I get totally into it. That's all I'm eating, breathing, living at that moment.

Music is my 90% of my life and my biggest passion. I really don't have an interest in anything else.

My thing is music, period.

I'm a very lazy person by nature. I have to be really engaged, and then I go straight from lazy to obsessive. I couldn't study chemistry, but I could memorize all the books for Dungeons and Dragons. It was ridiculous. The trick is to find what I like to do.

In the surfing days, that was all there was for me. Sailing, starting around '68, it was kind of the same deal. I always got really into whatever it was I was doing.

You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do. You want to be focused on it.

I do tend to lose myself in whatever job I'm doing or hobby I'm into.

Music, from the time I was probably about five years old, was my obsession. I was going to say 'passion,' but I really was obsessed; I really didn't want to do anything else.

I am a huge obsessor with photography.

Whenever I do something, I tend to focus on it and spend all of my time and energy on it.

My life revolves around music.

When I make a movie, I completely dive into it and I can't really take anything in at all, at that time.

Photography was the only thing that mattered in my life and I gave it everything.

Once I get on something, once I have something that I'm working on, then I become very obsessive. In a good way. I mean,... is there a positive way to say obsessive? It's a good thing and if you're out there and you're working on something right now and you're crazed and you're up in the middle of the night, or you can't stop thinking about it, or you have to keep reading other things about the subject that you're working on or whatever. That's good and I think that's necessary creatively.

If anyone gets in my way when I'm making a picture, I become irrational. I'm never sure what I am going to do, or sometimes even aware of what I do-only that I want that picture.

The photographer's art is a continuous discovery which requires patience and time.

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion.

I was 14 years old when I started rapping and I was terrible. I fell in love with it though and when that happens with me I become super passionate and go all the way with it.

You're at your best, when you're focused and you're serious and passionate about what you do, but at the same time you can relax and have fun and be confident.

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music. That was his reason for being alive. Nothing else mattered except music, really.

I don't even think about the word. But I do have certain things where I just go, "Aaaaahhh," irritatingly boring and insistent because I want it to look that way and I can do it - I don't even know if you'd call it passion or obsession. Obsession, possibly, but I really love what I do.