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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
I’m most interested in finding the strangeness and irony in reality. That’s my forte. – Mary Ellen Mark
Every photograph is the photographer’s opinion about something. It’s how they feel about something: what they think is horrible, tragic, funny. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
I’m a documentary photographer. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be; that’s where my heart and soul is. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
I’m a street photographer, but I’m interested in any ironic, whimsical images, and there’s something very romantic about a circus. – Mary Ellen Mark
I’m just interested in people on the edges. I feel an affinity for people who haven’t had the best breaks in society. I’m always on their side. I find them more human, maybe. What I want to do more than anything is acknowledge their existence. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
I don’t like to photograph children as children. I like to see them as adults, as who they really are. I’m always looking for the side of who they might become. – Mary Ellen Mark
I think photography is closest to writing, not painting. It’s closest to writing because you are using this machine to convey an idea. The image shouldn’t need a caption; it should already convey an idea. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
Nowadays shots are created in post-production, on computers. It’s not really photography. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society. – Mary Ellen Mark
I don’t like gimmicky pictures; I’ve always hated them. I like pictures that are very clear and clean, whether you’re a great street photographer – somebody like Friedlander or Winogrand or Cartier-Bresson – or whether you’re a portraitist, like Irving Penn. – Mary Ellen Mark
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. – Mary Ellen Mark
One of my all-time favorite photographers is Irving Penn. I wish I could have watched him work. – Mary Ellen Mark
