Sally Mann, What Remains Response

Project for AMD 317

Despite the controversy and sometimes disturbing subject matter that makes up Sally Mann’s photography, I really enjoyed how consistently her artistic journey has evolved throughout her life. After watching What Remains, I immediately realized how closely tied the themes of each body of her work were to her current life experiences.

(right) quick sketch inspired by Sally Mann’s close up portraits at the end of her What Remains project

She spent a whole decade photographing her children and their adventures, emotions, personalities, and innate vitality. This is what I would call her “Life” body of work because it deals with youth, birth, and the forming of families. Mann embarked upon her Life centered photography because she had just started her own family. Creating and nurturing life was a big part of her own life at the time, so she shot pictures of it. Then she became middle aged and her subject matter evolved with her. She started capturing landscapes that were peaceful, still, and timeless. Mann was halfway through her life and had already accomplished so much, but knew there was much more to achieve in the future. At this stage in her life, she felt timeless and her landscape subject matter reflected this. Finally, she came to the What Remains photography project which was lengthily discussed in the documentary. This body of work dealt with aging, death, and decay starting with decomposing dogs and evolving to bold images of human bodies. This “Death” project coincided with Mann’s own aging body and artistic career. She had recently found out that her husband was seriously ill and this made her confront his and her own mortality.

Each series of Sally Mann’s work was inspired by the own stages of her life and the experiences that went along with them. When she was creating and fostering life in her family, her subject matter was her youthful children. When she reached the middle of her life, her photographs centered on timeless landscapes. When she faced mortality and illness, she created a body of work around decaying corpses. This documentary and Sally Mann’s work as a whole inspires me to take risks in my artistic subject matter despite what the world around me thinks. It also made me realize that it is okay and even beneficial for the major themes of my artwork to evolve as time goes on. Overall, Sally Mann is an innovative, wonderful photographer and I am glad we got to learn from her experiences in watching What Remains.