Mary Ellen Mark's Quotes

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

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

I was fascinated by my own prom pictures.

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

I'm just interested in what makes a photograph.

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

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

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

Reality is always extraordinary.

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

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

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 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 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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Competing at the highest level is the greatest test of one's character.

Being an Olympian is the ultimate test of one's sporting ability.

The Olympic Games is the ultimate level of competition.