Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Markwas an American photographer known for her photojournalism / documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were "away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth20 March 1940
CountryUnited States of America
clues love offers people
I love to photograph people in their own environment. It offers clues to what's important in their lives.
eastern morning turkey
In 1965, I was in Trabzon in eastern Turkey on a Fulbright scholarship. I would get up every morning and walk around the streets and look for photographs.
background basic best essential picture position
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?'
children might side
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.
fantastic hard project starts worry
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.
contact downtown love people remember shoot street time took
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.
knew
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.
means
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.
knew life met people picked rest school stories travel
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.
allowed connection enter explored gave satisfying saw
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.
felt perhaps project turning
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.
hardest subjects findings
Finding the right subject is the hardest part.
photography thinking people
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.
photography reality interesting
Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality.