Margaret Renkl on Sally Mann in today's NYT

[warden]

Mods, lock or delete as you see fit. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about anything, just sharing a well written article from an author unafraid to touch a thorny subject. (The article is probably behind a paywall for those allergic to paywalls)

For those who can't read the article, Renkl was teaching 12 year old girls forty years ago when Sally Mann's book "At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women" was published. She offers her thoughts about the book and her experiences with her students.

Opinion | We Should Have Seen What Sally Mann Saw 40 Years Ago

A new edition of the photographer’s 1988 book is even more relevant today.

www.nytimes.com

"Sally Mann’s photographs are neither offensive nor disturbing, but they can be unsettling in their honesty, in the directness of their gaze. Whatever we think we see in any child, too often what we’re seeing is what we want to see. What Ms. Mann sees is who they are."​

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Margaret Renkl is a fine writer and if you're looking for a book that'll last a year - a backyard nature essay each week - I recommend her book "The Comfort of Crows".

The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a lite…

www.goodreads.com

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[Don_ih]

Since the last wonderful thread about Sally Mann, I bought a copy of At Twelve. The truth of your quoted statement is easily seen through that book, in the images and the slight amount of captioning. It's not as "challenging" a book as Immediate Family, but I find it more socially significant.

 

[BrianShaw]

“too often what we’re seeing is what we want to see”

…

 

[loccdor]

The group that you dislike is a monolith, and the group that you like are individuals. Interesting how the brain categorizes...

 

[MattKing]

I'm entirely aware of how much irony this post contains.
The moderation team is watching this thread carefully - it has already gone fairly far into the territory of purely political discussion, which of course we don't permit here, while encouraging you to continue it elsewhere.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Margaret Renkl is a fine writer and if you're looking for a book that'll last a year - a backyard nature essay each week - I recommend her book "The Comfort of Crows".

I have her essay collection Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South. Great writer.

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[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm entirely aware of how much irony this post contains.
The moderation team is watching this thread carefully - it has already gone fairly far into the territory of purely political discussion, which of course we don't permit here, while encouraging you to continue it elsewhere.

Sally Mann is a nice person. One should look at her photographs and decide whether you like them. Personally, I like the vertical ones the best.

 

[Pieter12]

Personally, I like the vertical ones the best.

???

 

[warden]

I have her essay collection Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South. Great writer.

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That’s on my to-read list.

 

[F4U]

Another Sally Mann thread. Poor moderators.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Another Sally Mann thread. Poor moderators.

Warden and I are working hard to make it a Margaret Renkl thread.

 

[MattKing]

We would be very happy to see discussions about the difference between offensive photography and disturbing photography, or for that matter about photographers that see what is there, instead of what they want to see.
Note how many instances of the word "photograph" appear as part of that last sentence.
I need to borrow a look at my wife's computer, because she has a discount subscription to the New York Times digital edition. That will let me read the piece.

 

[logan2z]

I need to borrow a look at my wife's computer, because she has a discount subscription to the New York Times digital edition. That will let me read the piece.

She can make the article available to you for free. My wife has a NYT digital subscription and does that all the time when she sees a photography related article she thinks I'll like. It can be done a limited number of times per month.

 

[MattKing]

We share a desktop for things that work best with a desktop, so I just choose my moment .

 

[Alex Benjamin]

So this thread went from Sally Mann's photographs to Margaret Renkl' writing to wifes caring for their husband's intellectual happiness by sharing their NYT subscription . The places photography takes you are endless .

 

[Pieter12]

She can make the article available to you for free. My wife has a NYT digital subscription and does that all the time when she sees a photography related article she thinks I'll like. It can be done a limited number of times per month.

I believe one can share the subscription with a family member, not just a limited number of articles.

 

[Arthurwg]

I'm entirely aware of how much irony this post contains.
The moderation team is watching this thread carefully - it has already gone fairly far into the territory of purely political discussion, which of course we don't permit here, while encouraging you to continue it elsewhere.

Someone said: "Everything is politics." I think it was Lenin.

 

[Dali]

I am the walrus…

 

[BrianShaw]

Someone said: "Everything is politics." I think it was Lenin.

Thomas Mann. Lenin maybe said it too. Mao had an equally interesting assessment of the relationship between politics and war. There are many great insights on that topic.

 

[mshchem]

I get NYT, I didn't get past the photos. Both of them.

 

[koraks]

There are many great insights on that topic.

But none of them are published through the Photrio forums. And we're going to keep it that way.

Another Sally Mann thread. Poor moderators.

No need to pity us; locking a thread is very quick and for us it's pretty much painless. But it'd be sad for the community if the handful of people who have difficulty navigating a few very simple rules would spoil this thread for the rest of us.

 

[Don_ih]

We would be very happy to see discussions about the difference between offensive photography and disturbing photography, or for that matter about photographers that see what is there, instead of what they want to see.

At Twelve is a good example of photography that can be disturbing, but you can't approach it superficially. It's also an example of photography that is strongly informed by sparse captioning. The situations represented get quite depressing. That some people get offended by photos is practically uncontrollable. But there's nothing in that book that is vacuous. It's a significant book and is unlikely to never be socially relevant.

As for photographers seeing what is there .... I think it's often more that photographers want to show you what they see and that becomes what "is there", especially when the audience only has access to the photo and not the reality.

 

[loccdor]

discussions about the difference between offensive photography and disturbing photography

I recently watched Triumph of the Will. It disturbed me rather than offended me. The thing about it that gave me the nausea was not the ideas the people believed, but the fact that a large percentage of all the human faces on the screen were going to face an early and senseless death.

I haven't found Sally Mann's work to be offensive or disturbing. I don't generally find unclothed human bodies disturbing unless there is some sort of malicious intent involved. But I do wish we could leave blanket assumptions on which type of person is against which type of photography out of the conversations when we talk about this - on this topic I think the New York Times writer did a disservice to her own intellectual credibility. Perhaps she's written some great books on other topics, I don't know and wouldn't be surprised if she did: it's very common for artists to be stunningly on point in one area and completely adrift in another.

Hope this is not perceived as political, I tried to avoid direct statements to that regard as much as possible while expressing my opinion.

 

[Hassasin]

We would be very happy to see discussions about the difference between offensive photography and disturbing photography, or for that matter about photographers that see what is there, instead of what they want to see.
Note how many instances of the word "photograph" appear as part of that last sentence.
I need to borrow a look at my wife's computer, because she has a discount subscription to the New York Times digital edition. That will let me read the piece.

Are you asking for the impossible ? All of it is subjective, personal, and has nothing to do with art, photography, or Sally Mann for that matter. And isn't everything visual about what one WANTS to see ? What IS THERE is also what someone else WANTS to see.

BTW, I'm not even going to try and repeat myself on Sally Mann. It is what it is, and differs from person to person. But nobody should be subjected to that display without a clear description of what Is about to be seen.

 

[CMoore]

But nobody should be subjected to that display without a clear description of what Is about to be seen.

I would like to be told.......what am i about to see.?
Thank You