What is truth in photography? It can be told in a hundred different ways. Every thirtieth of a second when the shutter snaps, its capturing a different piece of information. Sally Mann More Quotes by Sally Mann More Quotes From Sally Mann I like to make people a little uncomfortable. It encourages them to examine who they are and why they think the way they do. Sally Mann photography people thinking One of the things my career as an artist might say to young artists is: The things that are close to you are the things you can photograph the best. And unless you photograph what you love, you are not going to make good art. Sally Mann careers love-you art Photographs open doors into the past, but they also alloq a look into the future Sally Mann photography inspirational past The things that are close to you are the things you can photograph the best. Sally Mann photograph I struggle with enormous discrepancies: between the reality of motherhood and the image of it, between my love for my home and the need to travel, between the varied and seductive paths of the heart. The lessons of impermanance, the occasional despair and the muse, so tenuously moored, all visit their needs upon me and I dig deeply for the spiritual utilities that restore me: my love for the place, for the one man left, for my children and friends and the great green pulse of spring. Sally Mann spiritual spring children Every image is in some way a “portrait,” not in the way that it would reproduce the traits of a person, but in that it pulls and draws (this is the semantic and etymological sense of the word), in that it extracts something, an intimacy, a force. Sally Mann portraits photographer way It's always been my philosophy to try to make art out of the everyday and ordinary...it never occurred to me to leave home to make art. Sally Mann home philosophy art As ephemeral as our footprints were in the sand along the river, so also were those moments of childhood caught in the photographs. And so will be our family itself, our marriage, the children who enriched it and the love that has carried us through so much. All this will be gone. What we hope will remain are these pictures, telling our brief story. Sally Mann childhood rivers children I think truth is a layered phenomenon. There are many truths that accumulate and build up. I am trying to peel back and explore these rich layers of truth. All truths are difficult to reach. Sally Mann layers trying thinking Like all photographers, I depend on serendipity I pray for what might be referred to as the angel of chance. Sally Mann serendipity angel might The earth doesn’t care where death occurs. ...It’s the artist, by coming in and writing about it or painting it or taking a photograph of it, that makes the earth powerful and creates death’s memory. Because the land will not remember by itself, but the artist will. Sally Mann powerful writing memories I have nothing but respect for people who travel the world to make art and put exotic Indians in front of linen backdrops, but it's always been my philosophy to try to make art out of the everyday and ordinary. Sally Mann philosophy people art If it doesn’t have ambiguity, don’t bother to take it. I love that, that aspect of photography - the mendacity of photography. It’s got to have some kind of peculiarity in it, or it’s not interesting to me. Sally Mann photography photographer interesting Unless you photograph what you love, you're not going to make good art. Sally Mann photograph love-you art I’m so worried that I’m going to perfect [my] technique someday. I have to say its unfortunate how many of my pictures do depend upon some technical error. Sally Mann errors technique perfect Sometimes I think the only memories I have are those that I’ve created around photographs of me as a child. Maybe I’m creating my own life. I distrust any memories I do have. They may be fictions, too. Sally Mann memories children thinking It is easier for me to take ten good pictures in an airplane bathroom than in the gardens at Versailles. Sally Mann versailles airplane garden Photographs supplant and corrupt the past, all the while creating their own memories. Sally Mann creating memories past I can think of numberless males, from Bonnard to Callahan, who have photographed their lovers and spouses, but I am having trouble finding parallel examples among my sister photographers. The act of looking appraisingly at a man, making eye contact on the street, asking to photograph him, studying his body, has always been a brazen venture for a woman, though, for a man, these acts are commonplace, even expected. Sally Mann eye men thinking If I could be said to have any kind of aesthetic, it's sort of a magpie aesthetic - I just go and pick up whatever is around. If you think about it, the children were there, so I took pictures of my children. It's not that I'm interested in children that much or photographing them - it's just that they were there. Sally Mann photographer children thinking
