Sally Mann

Sally Mann, born May 1, 1951 in Lexington Virginia, began her career as a photographer as a staff photographer for Washington and Lee University.  Mann first became known from a one-woman exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in 1977 displaying photo she took of the construction of a new law building.  Mann is well known for her collection At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women.  This collection illustrates the in-between, confusing phase which young women experience between female childhood and the adult world of women.  Following that collection she did a series called Immediate Family (1992) which some people thought of as child pornography because it consisted of nude images of her children.  However, the controversy of the over the images of her children brought along with it, much publicity which helped Mann become more famous.  Recently Mann has been taking photos using scratched lenses and damaged cameras, which require the photographer to use their hand as the shutter,  to creating creative light exposure and ghost like images.  In 2001 Mann was named “Photographer of the Year” by Time magazine.   Sally Mann prefers to do all of her work on her own and has no fondness for digital technology.  She usually uses an 8×10 large format camera and enjoys experimenting with early developing processes.   

In my opinion, Sally Mann’s images are absolutely beautiful.  I simply love the emotion portrayed in each image.  Each one has their own feeling to it.  The way the she captures the sentiment of the children in her Portraits of Young Women is gorgeous.  I really also like how some of her images have a mystical and surreal feeling to them.  While I was looking through some of her work there is one specific image which constantly caught my eye (it is posted below).  It is a side shot of a young woman with long hair, naked, holding a weed (? Could be something else?)  to her lips.  I don’t know what it is about this photo but I just think it is gorgeous.  It might just be me but it seems to have a mystical feel to it that shows the inner beauty of women.

For more info on Sally Mann click these links

Art 21 

Sally Mann

Bongorama Stockholm (scroll down to get to her info)

Work by Sally Mann