Having published this blog, I have just noticed that the heading is somewhat misleading. Sally Mann is not my tutor. Andrew Conroy is. Sally Mann is a topic in the blog. So... I am at the end of week three following my
enrolment with the OCA and finally I am beginning to gather pictures together
for the early exercises, as well as learning the importance of grammar and precision in my writing.
I also met my tutor, Andrew Conroy - not Sally Mann, via
Skype (which was a bit weird) but useful as now I have a deadline for my first
assignment, which is in February. Yikes!!
I mentioned to Andrew that I had been doing
a few family portrait shoots and he asked me if I knew Sally Mann’s work and in
particular Immediate Family.
After our call I remembered that I had seen
something about her in a *documentary I own about photography a little while
back, and recall liking her photographs.
I looked at her website and today watched most of a film about her work, What Remains (2005).
The documented controversy about Immediate Family is hardly surprising
but not solely, I think, because the children are naked in many of the shots,
although that is what was focused on at the time and in the film. The nakedness is merely an expression of a
mentality that has always been challenging to the status quo.
The progressive lifestyle that the
photographs depict is extremely evocative and not very comfortable for some, I
think. There is a feral quality to the
children in the photos and the nakedness is nothing compared to the free,
expressive, sophisticated looks in their eyes, evident on their faces and in
the physicality of their bodies.
Children are usually expected to conform, behave, agree with the adults
and generally not get in the way, although they tend to do none of those
things in my experience; the adult world does not on the whole like to think
that children should be encouraged and allowed to be so unconstrained.
There is a very clear rejection, I think,
of that type of mentality where these children are concerned; and the
photographs sort of shove that rejection in the viewers face. These children are free and utterly at home
in their humanist existence; they are also absolutely happy to stare out at the
world and say, look at us – we’re not as many of you think we ought to be. And we like it that way! And perhaps even; what are you going to do about it?
I’m not saying the nakedness isn’t
challenging for some. But I am saying
that the nakedness is just part of something more fundamental. It is the evident ethos in the overall work that is so uncomfortable for people. Perhaps I’m stating the obvious here!
And I hope I’m not being judgmental as I find her work fascinating; it's certainly extremely powerful. (I am probably extremely envious of the
carefree, avant-garde, unconventional choices Sally Mann and her husband were
able to make about their family.) But
choice is a crucial element here because it is the result of rather a
privileged existence. Not necessarily
financially privileged, although that comes into it. But for poor children free, open, expressive
living is not deemed suitable. Middle
class, arty people ‘get away’ with it.
If obviously poor children are seen naked
and filthy jumping in and of lakes I am certain that we viewers might have had
a subtly different reaction. The
indignant would still have been indignant but very possibly with a different
outcome. I know Sally Mann was told she
might be arrested for exposing her children’s nakedness to the world. Had she been a different sort of person and
not the photographer she would, I believe, certainly have been arrested –
perhaps that’s just my perception though.
How does Sally Mann’s work affect me? I am taking photos of my family and for money
of other people’s families. Yes, I want
my photos to be distinctive and at the moment I don’t believe they are
generally, although I do try to record something authentic and genuine in amongst
the traditional expected shots. However,
as things stand, the photos that are chosen by clients are generally the safest,
most traditional ones. For me the
challenge is to produce work for that part of my life that is resonant and mine,
but also 'sellable'. Perhaps this may be a source of
conflict in my development but I think conflicting tension is a good thing for
creativity.
I had to stop watching the documentary just
as Sally Mann was entering a forensic study where dead bodies were decomposing
in the open. I am intrigued and perhaps
even preferred what I had seen already of related work to the family photos, so I look
forward to finding out more very soon.
Some photography of my own too…
I took the above photograph at Battersea
Park. I’ve placed it upside down. I’ve done this with a few photographs of mine
and think I will continue to. I’m
certain it’s been done a million times before but I know far too little about art
and artists so would be very interested to find out more. Perhaps it’s a clichéd and hackneyed thing to
do??
Nevertheless, I am fascinated by how we
project – and we all do – parts of ourselves, or in severe cases, much of
ourselves on to other people and the world around us.
I am struck by how it is possible to exist
within a projected reality as if were indeed actuality. For some it then becomes the reality.
I would like to explore this more.
*Documentary: The Genius of Photography: How photography has changed our lives. BBC DVD
No comments:
Post a Comment