Sydni Stearns - Sally Mann Post 11

1.Which of the artist's many technical choices are of interest to you and why?

Sally Mann chooses to shoot on an 8x10 format camera using 8x10 glass negatives. This is interesting to me, firstly, because she chooses to shoot on glass negatives. I have not really heard of photographers doing this and I would like to learn more about the process that she goes through when developing her glass negatives. She also uses a good deal of dodging and burning in her images as I saw in a documentary I watched of hers. An interesting example of this is the fourth image I have attached. In this image, she has dodged the area that the little girl (her daughter) is in and has created a sort of haze affect while the rest of the image is dark and more highly contrasted. Another interesting technical choice is that when capturing the portraits that are seen in the first image I attached, Sally Mann did not just capture a quick portrait. She shot each one at a 3 minute exposure which in turn, created a portrait that shows movement and motion rather than simply taking one in a fraction of a second.

2. What do you believe are the artist's conceptual and/or thematic intentions?

I believe that at the end of the day, Sally Mann just wants to create a beautiful photograph but she always wants to create one that will capture people's attention and cause them to have a reaction. For example, when her children were young, she would primarily take photographs of them nude. In doing this, she created beautiful photographs, but very controversial photographs. This sparked people's attention and caused them to question if this was child pornography. She soon captured the attention of several newspapers and many were talking about her images. Another series that she did in which left an impact on people was her series about death. She went to the University of Tennessee and photographed dead bodies from their cadaver farm for research. An example of this is the last image I have attached. She photographed many of the bodies and intended to put them in a gallery alongside images of portraits as shown in the first photo I attached. Of course, this caught people's attention because she was photographing literal dead bodies. No beating around the bush, she photographed them exactly as they laid and framed them. She definitely loves to make an impact on viewers and creates beautifully captured photos while doing so.

3. How do you personally respond to these choices and intents?

Personally, I think that her photos are so incredible and wonderfully contrasted and her concepts are great. But, I would not make the same choices, myself. I would not want to photograph nude children or dead bodies because those are two things that I would consider going too far. I know to push boundaries when photographing, but these are two things I most likely would not do due to the fact that I would be photographing young children and I would not want to flaunt their nudity and that I would not want to photograph dead bodies out of respect for the once living person and those that knew them. Although I do not agree with some of her decisions, I do think that her concepts are very intriguing. The choice to do a 3 minute exposure for her portraits is so clever to me because it captures motion beautifully and I think that Sally Mann's ability to create a compelling photo is so strong. I respect her work and am inspired by their ability to captivate. They also are simply stunning, in my opinion.