A Quote by Ari Marcopoulos

When you're with people that are aware of the fact that you're a photographer, they'll say, "Oh, look at that! That's something to take a picture of!" That's almost a sure sign that you shouldn't do it.
When someone says to you, 'Oh, I don't take a good picture,' what they mean is they haven't come to terms with how they look. They take a fine picture, it's just that their image of how they think they look is not in touch with the reality.
I go out and I meet people after the show, I take every picture that they ask for, I sign every autograph that they want. You know, there's merchandise for sale, but people don't have to buy anything. I'll sign their tickets, I'll sign whatever they want me to, I'll get a picture with them and I'll stay there with them as long as they want.
I don't ever want to be that guy who gets too big to take time to sign an autograph or take a picture, because I just know, without those fans, I'm nobody. A lot of people forget that fact when they make it.
I think, as poets, we are in the odd position of constantly defending our art form. Which is funny and also sort of invigorating, too. No one really says, "Oh you're a lawyer? I've never understood the law. In fact, I kind of hate it." Or, "Oh you wait tables? I didn't know that was something people did." I say it can be invigorating because, on some level, we have to evaluate what we do and why we do it almost daily. We have to explain ourselves to people all the time. We have to say, "Yes, I am a unicorn, believe in me."
I've never not been sure that I was a photographer any more than you would not be sure you were yourself. I was a photographer, or wanting to be a photographer, or beginning - but some phase of photographer I've always been.
I could not conceive that [fans] actually wanted me to sign something. It took a long time for me to figure out (a) just say 'Thank you' and sign the thing, and (b) smile in the picture, because if you try to just half-smile you're going to look constipated.
There's something arbitrary about taking a picture. So I can stand at the edge of a highway and take one step forward and it can be a natural landscape untouched by man and I can take one step back and include a guardrail and change the meaning of the picture radically... I can take a picture of a person at one moment and make them look contemplative and photograph them two seconds later and make them look frivolous.
I feel like the quality of privacy and respect of people's personal space has been completely disintegrated. You can ask to take the picture. I will be so glad to take the picture and pose and look good for the picture.
Every time I take a photo, it goes into SnapSeed. Even if it's just a price tag on something, it still goes into SnapSeed, and I start editing it. I'm not a photographer, so I need all the help I can get when it comes to make a picture look cool.
If you have one article of clothing that's very expensive, you don't have to have the whole ensemble and look like a Christmas tree. To wear the clothes, to not let them wear you. And to really remember that clothes are beautiful. It's like are you gonna wear something that people say: "Oh that's a great blouse." Or are you gonna wear something that people say: "Oh you look great today.." .
The photographer discovers himself/herself being photographed and we can guess he is uncomfortable. Unsuccessfully he/she tries to recompose his posture and to look like a photographer taking photos. But no, he is and continues to be a spectator. The momentous fact of being photographed leads him to becoming an actor. And, as always, actors must assume a role, which is only an elegant way of avoiding to say they must choose sides, choose a faction, take an option.
As soon as I say I'm from Texas people say, "Oh, I'm sure the school was horrible" and they picture me wearing some barrel and suspenders and people are bucktoothed and ignoring me. But that's not the case. I just had zero interest. I wanted to finish my research in the woods or play guitar or go have a cigarette.
If there is a single factor which separates the best photographers from the wannabes it is the quantity of images which they produce. They seem to be forever shooting. I have watched many of them as they take picture after picture even when they are not photographing. [...] Often these intimate images do not look as though they were taken by the same photographer. And that is their fascination and charm.
When people want me to sign an autograph in a restaurant, and I'm eating. I don't even have to say no, I just kind of stop and look at them ... "Oh, okay. I'll ... I'll come back."
Some people look at a picture for thirty seconds, some for years. It doesn't really matter because a picture is like life. You take out of life as much as you are able to take out of life, just as you take out of a picture as much as you can take out of a picture.
I almost always remember a picture I took with someone. If they said, 'Hey, here's a picture of us from five years ago,' and if I look at the picture, I almost always remember that specific time.
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