Probably one of the most influential photographers of the 21st century, Sally Mann has been a great success in the world of photography of the last decade and a half. Mann is considered one of the best black and white female photographers in the field and was even named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time Magazine in 2001. Mann’s photographs are alluring and intriguing for viewers, offering a new interpretation on how others normally perceive the different aspects of life. It is important however, to first take a look at how Mann got started.
Sally Mann was born as the youngest of three children in Lexington, Virginia on May 1st of 1951 to Robert S. Munger and Elizabeth Evans Munger. She lists her father as her main influence on with how she started a real interest in photography. This interest started when she received her first personal camera from him during her late teenage years. Mann continued her interest in photography throughout her education, though she went on to major in Literature. In 1966, she attended the Putney School in Vermont to finish her secondary education. She went on to study for two years at Bennington College and at Friends World College in New York. She finished her degree at Hollins College, VA in 1974 (Chou). Throughout her collegiate years, Mann attended various photography workshops across the world including that of Ansel Adams where she worked under him as an assistant. Also during this time, Mann met and married her husband of now forty years of marriage, Larry Mann, a lawyer. Together they have three children, Emmett, Virginia, and Jessie. Mann’s children would play a large part in her photography career as they grew up, her most renowned work including them. “The things that are close to you...
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...hildren aged and matured. Mann takes this to an entirely more intimate level when she photographs her husband Larry man at his most vulnerable times in Proud Flesh. Larry was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, deterioration of the muscles, and Mann began photographing him almost as if she was capturing his decay over time from a once youthful and strong man to one who has lost much of what he considered manly.
Sally Mann does not hold back anything when it comes to photography what she loves even though it can be painful for not just the viewer but the subject and photographer as well. It is hard to argue that Mann is not one of the most talented photographers in the 21st century because of the nature which she explores the art of photography. Without a doubt, Sally Mann has changed the way many people view photography and the meanings we find behind the picture.
For my museum selection I decided to attend Texas State University’s Wittliff Collection. When I arrived, there was no one else there besides me and the librarian. To be honest, I probably would have never gone to an art museum if my teacher didn’t require me to. This was my first time attending the Wittliff Collection, thus I asked the librarian, “Is there any other artwork besides Southwestern and Mexican photography?” She answered, “No, the Wittliff is known only for Southwestern and Mexican photography.” I smiled with a sense of embarrassment and continued to view the different photos. As I walked through Wittliff, I became overwhelmed with all of the different types of photography. There were so many amazing pieces that it became difficult to select which one to write about. However, I finally managed to choose three unique photography pieces by Alinka Echeverria, Geoff Winningham, and Keith Carter.
Born in 1934, Jerry Uelsmann grew up an inner city kid of Detroit. In high school, Uelsmann worked as an assistant for a photography studio; he eventually photographed weddings. Uelsmann went to Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) where he met Minor White, who “introduced [him] to the concept that photography could be used for self-expression” (Berman). While at RIT, he studied with Bruce Davidson, Peter Turner and Car Chiaraenza, with whom he held frequent discussions on how photography could be different. After RIT, Uelsmann went to Indiana University where he changed his degree to a Master of Fine Arts degree. He graduated with an M.S. and an M.F.A at Indiana University in 1960, where he studied with Henry Holmes Smith, who had worked with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. After graduation, he moved to Gainesville, Florida and began teaching photography (Taylor). Currently, Uelsmann is retired in Florida with his wife Maggie Taylor. He still creates photomontages and has exhibits all over the world. Uelsmann and his wife vacation in Yellowstone National Park every year, where he photographs the area and creates beautiful surreal photomontages (Congdon, 316-317).
In the great tradition of classical art, nudity and death have been two main themes of the masters. Sally Mann’s photographs twist this tradition when the nudes are her prepubescent children and the corpses are real people. The issue is that her photographs are a lens into unfiltered actuality, and consumers question the morality of the images based on the fact that children and corpses are unable to give legal consent. Her work feels too personal and too private. Mainly, people question whether or not Mann meant to cause an uproar with her work or if the results were completely unintentional. After looking through what Sally Mann herself has said, it can be determined that both options have a grain of truth. She wanted to provoke thought,
It’s his compassion for his subjects and his commitment to them that surpasses the act of making a pretty picture. Spending days with his subjects in the slums of Harlem or the hardly developed mountains of West Virginia, he immerses himself into the frequently bitter life of his next award-winning photo. Often including word for word text of testimonials recorded by junkies and destitute farmers, Richards is able to provide an unbiased portrayal. All he has done is to select and make us look at the faces of the ignored, opinions and reactions left to be made by the viewer. Have you ever been at the beach safely shielded by a dark pair of sunglasses and just watched?
The article has two parts, the first part is ““A Response to Mary Gordon” by Sally Mann,” she protects her family pictures from critics that are against her work such as Mary Gordon. (p. 228 - 229). Sally Mann is a photographer that takes pictures of her children and a series of her pictures, her children are nude and the way that they are posing makes some critics question her work. Pictures tell a lot but can be misread between the person behind the camera and the one that see’s the photograph. (p. 229) She looks at her pictures and see’s her children’s innocence while others see it in a sexual way with her children’s poses and gazes. (p. 229) The critics against her work think that it is bad to expose her children in that manner. Mary Gordon does not like Sally Mann’s photo of “The Perfect Tomato”, Gordon thinks that Mann staged the photo, she thinks that all Mann’s photos are always structured and that her children are posing through her commands. Mann claims that in the “tomato” picture, she captured it just in that moment and it was
Practiced by thousands who shared no common tradition or training from the earliest days of taking photos, the first photographers were disciplined and united by no academy or guild, who considered their medium variously as a trade, a science, an art, or an entertainment, and who often were unaware of each other’s work. Exactly as it sounds photography means photo-graphing. The word photography comes from two Greek words, photo, or “light”, and graphos, or drawing and from the start of photography; the history of the aforementioned has been debated. The idea of taking pictures started some thirty-one thousand years ago when strikingly sophisticated images of bears, rhinoceroses, bison, horses and many other types of creators were painted on the walls of caves found in southern France. Former director of photography at New Yorks museum of modern art says that “The progress of photography has been more like the history of farming, with a continual stream of small discoveries leading to bigger ones, and in turn triggering more experiments, inventions, and applications while the daily work goes along uninterrupted.” ˡ
Zanele muholi is a visual photographer and an activist of Black lesbian community. Using photography she addresses the challenges being faced by black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in both townships and communities. These people are vulnerable and they cannot speak for themselves but, through the pictures they are able to raise their concerns. Most of Zanele pictures are in black and white because according to her, one is able to concentrate in the message than the colour. This essay will therefore, discuss the significance of Zanele’s choice of photographic portraits as a medium to raise the concerns of LGBI community by using some of her images.
Art could be displayed in many different forms; through photography, zines, poetry, or even a scrapbook. There are many inspirational women artists throughout history, including famous women artists such Artemisia Gentileschi and Georgia O’Keeffe. When searching for famous female artists that stood out to me, I found Frida Kahlo, and Barbara Kruger. Two very contrasting type of artists, though both extremely artistic. Both of these artists are known to be feminists, and displayed their issues through painting and photography. Frida Kahlo and Barbara Kruger’s social and historical significance will be discussed.
Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Cindy Sherman grew up in suburban Huntington Beach on Long Island, the youngest of five children and had a regular American childhood. She was very self-involved, found of costumes, and given to spending hours at the mirror, playing with makeup (Schjeldahl 7). Cindy Sherman attended the state University College at Buffalo, New York, where she first started to create art in the medium of painting. During her college years, she painted self-portraits and realistic copies of images that she saw in photographs and magazines. Yet, she became less, and less interested in painting and became increasingly interested in conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, and film alternatives (Sherman 5). Sherman’s very first introductory photography class in college was a complete failure for she had difficulties with the technological aspects of making a print. After her disastrous first attempt in photography, Sherman discovered Contemporary Art, which had a profound and lasting effect on the rest of her artistic career (Thames and Hudson 1). Sherman’s first assignment in her photography class was to photograph something which gave her a problem, thus, Sherman chose to photograph her self naked. While this was difficult, she learned that having an idea was the most important factor in creating her art, not so much the technique that she used.
Margaret is known for painting whimsically large eyes on any and all of her subjects in paintings. This has been true ever since the beginning of her career, and while she may have discovered her reason for painting them, she will always keep the painting style that she has grown accustomed to over the years.1 Margaret began her art career before marrying Walter Keane, but it took
It was not until a trip to Japan with her mother after her sophomore year of studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute that Annie Leibovitz discovered her interest in taking photographs. In 1970 Leibovitz went to the founding editor of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner, who was impressed by Leibovitz’s work. Leibovitz’s first assignment from Wenner was to shoot John Lennon. Leibovitz’s black-and-white portrait of Lennon was the cover of the January 21, 1971 issue. Ironically, Leibovitz would be the last person to capture her first celebrity subject. Two years later she made history by being named Rolling Stone’s first female chief photographer. Leibovitz’s intimate photographs of celebrities had a big part in defining the Rolling Stone look. In 1983 Leibovitz joined Vanity Fair and was made the magazine’s first contributing photographer. At Vanity Fair she became known for her intensely lit, staged, and alluring portraits of celebrities. With a broader range of subjects available at Vanity Fair, Leibovitz’s photographs for Vanity Fair ranged from presidents to literary icons to t...
As a photographer, I am very intrigued by the works of Sally Mann. Sally Mann is mostly known for her controversial, racy images which featured her own children. These photos are seen in Mann’s collection is Immediate Family (1992). I think all her photographs are representational. They either symbolize the destruction or vulnerability of youth, the fascination of the human body, and the fascination of certain landscapes. Immediate Family is filled with images of her children doing grown-up things and showing their journey for autonomy.
Annie Leibovitz is one of the best portrait photographers in this modern age. Her works focus on varied subjects but hover more among celebrity portraits. Apart from these, her photographs depict visual stories that affect audience's emotions. The diversity and life of her photographs create visual artistic realms that touch the soul.
Born to Nettie Lee Smith and Bill Smith on December 18, 1918 in Wichita, Kansas was William Eugene Smith, who would later revolutionize photography. His mother Nettie was into photography, taking photos of her family, especially her two sons as they grew up, photographing events of their lives (Hughes 2). Photography had been a part of Smith’s life since he was young. At first it started out always being photographed by his mother, and then turned into taking photographs along with his friend Pete, as he got older. They often practiced developing photos in Nettie’s kitchen, and he later began to create albums with his photographs. His photographs diff...
Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty(tm)s Photography: Images into Fiction. Critical Essays on Eudora Welty. W. Craig Turner and Lee Emling Harding. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1989. 288-289.