One of the artists we saw last week was Sally Mann. She used old-fashioned photography techniques to create her artwork. She took pictures of dog bones, her children, and nature scenes. I can kind of relate to her work because I like seeing common objects with an artistic mindframe. I didn’t hate her work; I liked it. It sticks out to me because of the medium she is using. The equipment she is using was popular over 100 years ago, but she still knows the techniques to use it. She can get some variety in her artwork that is hard to capture using purely modern digital techniques. There is an element of risk in her work: if she’s lucky, she’ll get a picture that looks good and maybe something will have happened in the photographing process to give it some personality. Her process also takes a few minutes, instead of an instant shot. That means she has to have some kind of commitment to the image she is capturing. I think what stood out the most for me, besides her unique medium, is her relationships with her children. Her children are her models. She is really focused on her art, and you know that her family supports her efforts, but you can also see from the video that they find her work consuming. It takes up her time and focus. When she uses her children as models, she’s not viewing them as her children, she’s viewing them as models. Her children must have a lot of patience to stay still while she takes these lengthy photos. The one where her daughter had her hair plastered on her ribs reminded me of a mermaid. The effect was cool, but what they all remember was the amount of effort that went into creating that image. I also get the sense that Mann is trying to live up to her father’s reputation/expectations, and she will probably never be completely satisfied with her efforts. I wonder if she is passing that feeling down to her children.
As for the photographs themselves, I really like the nature scenes, and I like the way people get incorporated in the nature scenes. I think the nude children give kind of a wild magic to the photos. I also like the way she is using an old-fashioned technique to make her art.
A Former Digital Art Blog 