Sally Mann

I enjoyed watching Sally Mann’s documentary because I felt a connection with a lot of what she said. Her opening statement about photographing the things you love are what makes the photograph the best is so passionate, and is actually something that I tend to do when I am photographing. Mann went on to explain how she see’s the world in images. This is because she can be talking with someone, and all of a sudden she see’s the prospective image worthy scene and through photography you are able to capture that moment and have it not only stored in your mind but also have a visual memory of it.

I fell in love with Mann’s Portrait of Marriage series that she was working on. She was documenting her marriage life through photographs of things that both she and her husband do on a daily base. The images ranged from taking a bath, sexual contact, interacting with their dogs, personal care such as shaving, cutting toe nails etc. I found this find intriguing because when I think of marriage photography, it is usually of the wedding day or perhaps the honeymoon. It’s rare that people tend to photograph their day-to-day lives after their wedding. This can also be linked with Mann’s Death series photographs because once a living person is no longer alive; society tends to associate the dead as something offensive and controversial to photograph. However, I liked how Sally Mann decided to basically challenge society and went ahead with the project by getting up close and personal with corpses, and as a result produced some really dramatic and quite beautiful images.