Mary Ellen Mark quotes:

I've always been interested in photographing traditions and customs - especially in America. The prom is an American tradition, a rite of passage that has always been one of the most important rituals of American youth. It is a day in our lives that we never forget - a day full of hopes and dreams for our future.

I saw that my camera gave me a sense of connection with others that I never had before. It allowed me to enter lives, satisfying a curiosity that was always there but that was never explored before.

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.

I'm staying with film, and with silver prints, and no Photoshop. 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.

It's good that everyone has an opportunity to take pictures, the chance to be a photographer. Some are good, too. But the bad thing is that it's very, very difficult to take a great picture. Everyone can take a good picture - even a child - but it's hard to make a great one.

What I'm trying to do is make photographs that are universally understood... that cross cultural lines. I want my photographs to be about the basic emotions and feelings that we all experience.

I love dogs. I absolutely adore them. When I'm teaching in Mexico, I rescue dogs from the streets and make my students adopt them.

I always think, 'What does this picture mean? What's the best place to put my camera? Do I have anything extra in the picture, things in the background that will distract? Am I in the basic position that will give the essential things for this picture but not too much?'

Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society.

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.

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.

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

I wanted to travel from the beginning. As a kid, I used to dream about airplanes, before I ever flew in one.

The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.

I don't see how a woman in documentary photography could have children. I think it's a very difficult thing to do to raise a family, and I have enormous respect for people who do it. I'd hate to do something like that and not be good at it.

During prom season, I travel around the country with a 20-by-24 camera - which is logistically complicated - and photograph proms. My husband made a film of it.

I'm most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That's my forte.

I really knew when I started photographing I wanted it to be a way of knowing different cultures, not just in other countries but in this country, too, and I knew I wanted to be a voyeur.

I was something of a problem kid. I was emotional, wild, rebellious at school. I'm very touched by kids who don't have advantages; they are much more interesting than kids who have everything. They have a lot of passion and emotion, such a strong will.

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

Looking at my own prom photograph reminds me of how significant that moment was - and how fleeting life is.

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.

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

Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It's not really photography.

I was thinking about how fleeting and precious life is. Life is also arbitrary. For example, the choices that you make, the luck of being born into the right bed, to parents who support and help you and who love you. That doesn't always happen - and then, what happens when it doesn't?

I don't relax. I can't take vacations. I'm obsessive-compulsive, and I worry with every project that I'm going to fail. When it starts to go well, and I sense that something beautiful and important and meaningful is being created, it's a fantastic feeling, and I find it very hard to stop.

As a kid, I used to dream about airplanes before I ever flew in one. I really knew, when I started photographing, I wanted it to be a way of knowing different cultures, not just in other countries but in this country, too, and I knew I wanted to enter other lives. I knew I wanted to be a voyeur.

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'm not much for cats. I'm terrified of mice. I've worked a lot with elephants, and they are extremely intelligent and sensitive, and thankfully, they seem to like me. You never want to get on the bad side of an elephant. And never trust a chimp.

In every successful still photographic project that I have completed, there has always been a turning point in the story where I felt that perhaps I was working on something that could be very special.

One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work.

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.

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.

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.

I could spend my whole life photographing circuses. They combine everything I'm interested in - they're ironic, poetic, and corny at the same time. There's also something about a circus that's magical, sentimental, and almost tragic, like a Fellini film.

What you look for in a picture is a metaphor, something that means something more, that makes you think about things you've seen or thought about.

I've always been fascinated by twins. In my forty years of photographing, whenever there was an opportunity, I would take a picture of twins. I found the notion that two people could appear to look exactly alike very compelling.

If I'm in an unusual or extreme social environment, I always want to know what it's like to grow up there and experience it as normal, everyday life. And I want to know what sort of adults these children are going to turn into.

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.

A great photograph needs no explanation; it functions by suggestion. There is no need to be explicit.

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.

I always wanted to photograph the universal subjects.

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.

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.

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..

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.

I was fascinated by my own prom pictures.

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.

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.

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.

I'm a documentary photographer. That's what I've always wanted to be; that's where my heart and soul is.

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.

Im just interested in what makes a photograph.

In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.

It's not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.

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.

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.

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.

Reality is always extraordinary.

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.

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.

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

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.

Finding the right subject is the hardest part.

I want my photographs not only to be real but to portray the essence of my subjects also. In order to do that, you have to be patient.