Mary Ellen Pleasant Quotes

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. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

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. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

Photograph the world as it is. Nothing's more interesting than reality. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

In the tide pool I was riveted by fat pink sea stars sitting like satisfied gangsters and seemingly unconcerned by their exposure; gulls would peck at them but the sea stars simply grew replacement limbs. ~ Mary Ellen Hannibal

I have come to feel that the essence of life is not what it so often seems to be - working to have, working to get, working to possess. It's about becoming. It's about what's happening inside us. ~ Mary Ellen Edmunds

It's not the end of the road, it's just the end of the road work. ~ Mary-Ellen Peters

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

Finding the right subject is the hardest part. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

Television gives you the opportunity to create more of an ongoing camaraderie with everyone you're working with. ~ Mary Ellen Trainor

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

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

I was fascinated by my own prom pictures. ~ 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

Digest your experiences well and let this nourish the body of your life. ~ Mary-Ellen Peters

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 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

Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind. ~ Mary Ellen Chase

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

Tears are the souls raindrops softening the hard ground life can produce. ~ Mary-Ellen Peters

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. ~ 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 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

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

Wanting less is probably a better blessing than having more. ~ Mary Ellen Edmunds

The sky seemed abruptly to have had enough of my dithering and dramatically lightened up around the glowing moon, which retreated like an aging sovereign before the rising sun. ~ Mary Ellen Hannibal

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

So when he asked about getting high, I didn't think, I agreed. We smoked some good California green. Took three tries to put me in the place he said I should be. ~ Ellen Hopkins

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. ~ Mary Ellen Mark

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

Everything was insanely alive, now you see it, now you don't. I thought, it's the light, it's the water, it's changing every second, it's always doing this whether I'm here to witness it or not. ~ Mary Ellen Hannibal

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

If you cannot find a way through an issue, simply make a new one for yourself! ~ Mary-Ellen Peters

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