Quote

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.

Mary Ellen Mark

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mary Ellen Mark
Age: 75 †
Born: 1940
Born: March 20
Died: 2015
Died: May 25
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Screenwriter
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
People
Formula
Formulas
Subjects
Open
Asks
Talk
Everyone
Matter

More quotes by Mary Ellen Mark

Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
It’s not when you press the shutter, but why you press the shutter.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
Usually my ideas for work have revolved around my interest in people, especially people that live on the edges of society.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
The obsessions we have are pretty much the same our whole lives. Mine are people, the human condition, life.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
I respect newspapers but the reality is that magazine photojournalism is finished. They want illustrations, Photoshopped pictures of movie stars.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
I always wanted to photograph the universal subjects.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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
Image
If you are interested in photography because you love it and are obsessed with it, you must be self-motivated, a perfectionist, and relentless.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
A great photograph needs no explanation it functions by suggestion. There is no need to be explicit.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
Im just interested in what makes a photograph.
Mary Ellen Mark
Image
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
Image
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.
Mary Ellen Mark