Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

I realize that I had the best of serious picture journalism.

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.

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.

I'm not a photojournalist.

I'm always taking behind-the-scenes photos and stuff.

Anyone who looks for life can find it... and they don't need to photograph ashcans. The average camera fan reminds me of Pollyanna, with a lollypop in one hand and a camera in the other. You can't be a Nice Nelly and take news pictures.

And what we called photojournalism, the photos seen in places like Life magazine, didn't interest me either. They were just not good-there was no art there. The first person who I respected immensely was Henri Cartier-Bresson. I still do.

Photography can be a powerful instrument for change, and photojournalists can tell stories that make a difference.

Writing is my profession. Photography is my hobby.

The camera can be the most deadly weapon since the assassin's bullet. Or it can be the lotion of the heart.

'America 24/7' will be a landmark series in documentary photography and the watershed event of the new digital photography age.

I do love acting. But to work as a photojournalist would have been extraordinary.

I shot images of everything I could find over the course of a year. I would go all over the world and take pictures. In a day, I could easily take thousands.

I always take hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I used to work for 'National Geographic,' and they gave us a lot of film.

In the South or in the mine country, wherever you point the camera there is a picture.

If I wasn't a comic or TV star, I really wanted to be a photojournalist.

People don't realize that one picture for you is just one picture. But for me, I take a thousand pictures a day. That adds up. It's tough getting somewhere on time when you have to stop that much.

To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by Life.

If I wasn't a comic or TV star, I really wanted to be a photojournalist. That was my other dream job.

I always knew I belonged on the other side of the lens.

I think a lot of times, especially for certain stories, photographers travel together for safety reasons, and they also invariably cross paths. But you could have 10 photographers shooting together in the same spot but capturing different images.

The most powerful weapon in the world, as far as I'm concerned, is the camera.

My uncle was a photographer for 'The Irish Times.'

I became obsessed with the storytelling of photography and going on little adventures.

I kind of grew up with a camera in my hand.