Response to Sally Mann segment on ART21

Sally Mann:  Place

Sally Mann is a Virginia based artist.  She uses black and white dark room techniques to create prints which are abstract.  She values "ambiguity" in her work.  She uses an ancient light box to photograph simple objects to create visual expression.  The process she uses wet plate collodian.  The shutter on the camera is her hand.

Her early photographs replicated 18th century aescetics.  The models were her children and were portrayed nude.

The nudity of the children makes me very uncomfortable.  Laws and the old school morés molded my ideas about morality and thus my attitudes about nude photographs of children.

I am fascinated by the process that Mann uses, especially the ancient, wet plate camera that she uses.