Sally Mann Essay..

20Nov09

I wrote this a couple of months ago for my English class, and thought it would be fun to share.  It’s my critical analysis of Sally Mann’s photograph Blowing Bubbles and the first big paper I had to write since going back to school.  So please be kind! 

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Framed by the leaves of the potted plants below their feet and those of the trees in the forest beyond, two little girls are perched barefoot atop chairs on their family porch.  The girls are immediately and captivatingly distinct from their surroundings and from each other.  In the center of the image, with her curly head and little jumper, the younger of the two stares at the camera with an intent, indiscernible gaze.  Her hands clutch at her tense body as she stands squarely upon her chair, and the doll on the railing beside her mimics its owner’s tension.  The shadow on the little girl’s face and the dark color of her clothing suggests that something here is not quite right.

In the background, just behind her sister and facing away from the camera, the elder of the girls is wearing a tutu and blowing bubbles into a breeze. Her stance is relaxed and she is in her own world, happy to watch her bubbles float away through the old screen frame balancing on the porch railing.  Naïve of her surroundings and lost in thoughts and fantasies, she doesn’t realize that they are being observed or even that this moment is being photographed.

Seen throughout her Immediate Family collection, the ability to capture contrasts like those found in Blowing Bubbles is at the very heart of Sally Mann’s talent.  In this photograph, the trust and hopefulness of childhood fighting against the lost innocence of adolescence, is exceptionally illustrated.  The light that illuminates her children’s forms is threatened by the dark and murky grayness of the plants and porch and forest looming nearby.  The appearance of the girls themselves clash, one daughter is wearing a dark and ordinary jumper and the other a bright and fluffy tutu; the smaller girl is engaged in visual warfare with the camera while her sister is sublimely oblivious to its presence.  Upon studying the picture closer, it becomes belatedly obvious that the very foundation upon which they both stand, the chairs, follow this train of conflicting moods: the peeling paint of the younger daughter’s chair competes with the pristine paint of the elder’s.  The method of using of black and white film further exemplifies this struggle between light and dark.  Interestingly, the most intriguing and remarkable quality of the photograph is what is not revealed within the frame.

Although Mann is captivated by the wonders of childhood, she pulls back from experiencing it with her children and uses the lens as a barrier between herself and her subjects.  Rather than embracing the moment, she distances herself from it.  She chooses to capture a photo of children living, rather than living with her children.  Her photography consistently portrays this struggle with the concept of childhood.

In What Remains, the film documenting her life and art, Sally describes growing up in an unusual environment where being conventional was discouraged, and how being unique and artistic was more acceptable to her eccentric and remote father who “didn’t allow for disappointment.”  She also reveals how her “parents didn’t support all the middle-class things that everyone else’s parents did.”  She did not experience childhood as most have.  Instead of spending her summers playing dress up and dolls, she ran about naked outside, rode horses, and dug forts in the honeycomb.

However contrived or posed they might be, taking photographs of her children is Mann’s attempt to regain the normalcy she lacked as a child herself, yet in Blowing Bubbles she falls short.  Because the disparity between the girls is so blindingly evident, the inadequacy she felt as a youth is exposed.  The younger daughter epitomizes the childhood Mann had: tense, lonely, and conflicted.  In contrast, the older girl epitomizes the way Mann feels that childhood should be: carefree, happy, and hopeful; she personifies everything that Mann wishes her childhood had been.

The conflicts captured in front of her lens, as well as those discovered behind it, are further amplified by the controversy her images instigate.  Mann is
accused of being a bad mother that selfishly manipulates her children.  “Beauty does not validate exploitation,” notes one critic in journalist Jane Malcom’s essay, Family of Mann.  Some view the pictures of the children in Immediate Family, naked and outside, as overtly sensual, even obscene.

Despite the social commentary they incite, Mann’s photographs are undeniably striking and the many layers of each picture captivate as they peel back to reveal new details and interpretations.  The lighting and technical effects of Blowing Bubbles illuminate the gap between lightness and darkness, and draws the viewer deeper into the picture where the face of her daughter commands the focus of the frame and slowly mesmerizes the viewer.  To view her photos with unambiguous disdain is to invalidate their innate hypnotic beauty and the hidden messages held within. While easily misconstrued, the nude pieces of her work exude the hopefulness and freedom associated with being a child; her pictures encapsulate the very essence of childhood as a time of innocence and unawareness.

As an amateur photographer, I am envious of Sally Mann’s talent.  Instantly identifiable, the complexity with which she constructs her frames is distinct and addictive.  She has what is called an “eye” for pictures; she can see a photograph as it happens.  When I take a picture of my son, in the very instant when I snap the photo, I can feel a hint of my own “eye” emerging.  Whether eating Cheetos during our picnic at the park last summer or sleeping under his Finding Nemo comforter in the middle of the night, like Sally Mann, I use photography to capture unremarkable moments in my son’s childhood.  Being a parent and seeing him grow up more and more every day, I am acutely aware of how quickly time passes, and the pictures let me pretend that I’m holding on to him in his youthful form.  It brings tears to my eyes to think that when he is an adult, grown and gone, I will no longer get to experience with him all of the small joys that only a childhood can bring: Cheeto powder being licked off of little fingertips or stubby toes peeking out from under warm blankets.  My son will never get older in the pictures; they are permanent pieces of him that will defy aging.  I imagine that in 20 years, I will look at the hundreds of snapshots I’ve taken and be able to sense behind the lens the bittersweet sadness of a mother slowly losing her child to the world.  In this way, Sally Mann and I are alike.  We take pictures because we are selfish mothers.  Mann uses the medium of photography in an attempt to erase her past and create new memories for herself; I use photography to cling to the present.  Is either worse than the other?

A photograph is a moment in time captured in visual form on printed paper, a memory of times past.  In her essay, Malcom asserts that “a photograph never says anything unequivocally, even when it most appears to be doing so.”  In Sally Mann’s case this is especially true, but perhaps that is the intention of this artist, to make the viewer search for the purpose in the photo, second-guess the initial interpretation, and question any ambiguous messages hidden within it.  Maybe the questioning has become part of the art itself.

~

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My new home away from home..

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Richland Campus, DCCCD

Whoohoo!  Go me! 

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Bye bye..

13Aug09

Two weeks ago, I wished that I could go back to Vegas for a visit.  Five days later I found myself on a flight headed there, rushing to be by my grandmother’s side as she struggled for her life in a emergency room hospital bed.  I didn’t make it in time, and I missed saying goodbye by less minutes than you can count on one hand.  Sad.

I miss her.

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Can I go back to Vegas now?

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palms

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Peace, Love, & Crabs..

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