Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

I photograph different people all the time. I like to shoot all kinds of people.

I always say I make pictures rather than take pictures.

I was always trying to take art photographs, but the most interesting pictures were the snapshots. The artsy pictures were boring, always.

Black-and-white photography, which I was doing in the very early days, was essentially called art photography and usually consisted of landscapes by people like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. But photographs by people like Adams didn't interest me.

Photography is an accident.

Even the photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, with all due respect to him, are notoriously burned and dodged.

My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.

I'd go down to the end of my street, to a garage that had a certain feeling about it, or a particular light; I'd take a picture of a friend who needed a head shot. That's how I learned, instead of having school assignments and learning camera techniques.

All I do is make photos. It's my life.

When you're used to looking through a stills lens and you have to capture an emotional moment, and that picture is not moving and yet it has to have impact, I think that's the first influence on my style.

Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.

I love photographs. I love taking photographs. When I see something that's great, I want to capture that. You put it out there and on a place like Instagram you can put it there and review it later.

The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject, and the camera will all but take you by the hand and point the way.

We tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that's the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was so ordinary. Nobody had ever done it before, deliberately. Now it's called documentary, which I suppose is all right ... We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.

I like Ryan McGinley's work.

Each book requires a different look. Sometimes I get to take a personal direction that's appropriate for the story. I try to push things within a range. Some are rougher, some more expressionistic, some are slicker graphically and call for a prettier drawing style that I can do. Some have a more classical vibe, and some are in between.

I never claimed to be a great photographer.

I've always thought photography is not so much of an art form but a way of communicating and passing on information.

Photography is my passion. Whenever I get time, I click.

I always liked taking photographs.

Whenever I do someone's portrait, I'm trying to locate the photo in the lens while reaching into that person psychologically. There's the magic! I don't always achieve it. It's a hit or a miss!

I take a lot of pride in my photography.

Creating films and photographs through situations that few others could experience is my life's inspiration.

There's one right place to put the camera. I'm a big believer in that. You'd think you could put it anywhere. Nope.

Anybody doesn't like these pitchers don't like potry, see? Anybody don't like potry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses. Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes.