Mariana Yampolsky
[Photographer, b. 1925, Chicago, d. 2002, Mexico City.]

 If I have to define my photography, I’d say my studio is the street. 
 Often my best photographs are the ones I didn’t take. 
 I’ve never been interested in expressing my own ego; on the contrary, I was interested in reflecting a moment in the lives of people that others perhaps don’t see or don’t value. 
 People ask me, ‘What kind of pictures do you take?’ And I don’t know how to answer, because I can’t stand the word ‘artistic’—it’s not important to me if something is art, or not. When I see a photograph that moves me, I don’t wonder if it’s art… 
 How do I know a photograph will be good? I don’t have to see it printed. I know it at the moment I click the shutter. 
 Although I try to be unobtrusive, it is not always possible to pass unnoticed. It pleases me when I am taken for an itinerant photographer… 
 I always try to go beneath the surface, although many photographers find that to be painful.