As I have written before I’m very interested in the creative process of photography. It’s not that I don’t like the ‘how-to’ aspect of photography, because that’s interesting too, but at a certain point as you become better technically, it’s the artistic process that becomes more interesting. At least so it is for me.
To me, what’s interesting about a good image is not so much how it was conceived technically, but rather how it was conceived creatively.
In the DVD What Remains director Steven Cantor follows Sally Mann at her family farm in Virginia over a period of five years, and the viewer is given unbridled access to the many stages of Mann’s work and gets a rare glimpse of an eloquent and brilliant artist.
© Sally Mann.
What Remains is all about the artistic process, so if you’re like me, you’ll absolutely love this DVD.
I have to be brutally honest, though, and admit that before buying What Remains I knew very little about Sally Mann.
For example I didn’t know that Sally Mann was described as “America’s greatest photographer” by Time Magazine.
I had come across her name once or twice in the past and I remember having seen a couple of her photos in the past (including the one of Jessie with a candy cigarette shown below), but none of it really stuck with me at the time for some reason. Probably because this was back in my ‘how-to’ days.
Not so now. After watching What Remains (a few times now) I have fallen completely in love with Sally Mann’s work, in particular her Immediate Family which is a series of photographs of her children that brought Sally Mann to international attention in 1992 for the first time.
© Sally Mann.
What Remains is easily one of the best photography documentary films I have ever seen. I also really like Born Into Brothels but let’s save that for another time. What Remains is absolutely brilliantly put together by the talented director Steven Cantor, and the musical score is both incredibly beautiful and strangely moody, setting an amazing atmosphere throughout the film.
The New York Times wrote this about What Remains when it came out in 2006:
“One of the most exquisitely intimate portraits not only of an artist’s process, but also of a marriage and a life.”
To me Sally Mann embodies what a true artist is. She recognizes simple every day events and has the ability to transform these events into amazing works art. She lets life inspire her.
Mann gives a perfect example of this in the film when she describes how Immediate Family started:
“I just was responding to things that appealed to me. One day Jessie came home with a gnat bite on her face and it was all swollen up. Actually it had bruised. It really looked like she’d been beaten up. Up until that point I’d thought that the children were snashot material. But she was so striking that it occurred to me that right here, right under my nose was a picture – I mean a real picture. And I just put her up against the wall and documented it. So that’s how I started.”
© Sally Mann.
Straight after seeing Sally Mann telling the story of the photograph of Jessie’s gnat bite, director Steven Cantor clips to the next scene which took me in a slightly unexpected direction. The next scene simply reduced me to tears (yeah, yeah, I know, a grown man crying is not the best look for the macho image, but hey, I’m just telling you the truth here).
Tears just streamed down my face as I watched how Sally Mann directed her other girl, Virginia, into what looks like a small swimming pool so that only her head is above water. She then asks her to pull her hair out into a circle and Virginia, innocently, does her best to pose for her mother.
Sally Mann then creates one of the most wonderful pictures I think I’ve ever seen. It’s just a very, very moving photograph, and seeing how it was created made it all the more moving. The photograph is as pure a mixture of innocence and beauty as you can get I think.
© Sally Mann.
Mann was unaware of the media attention she would attract with Immediate Family, and more so the controversy that her work would stir up. To her, the photographs were little more than tender, maternal photographs of her children.
Yet to some, they were child pornography, and the mark of an irresponsible mother. The controversy that Immediate Family stirred up has been described to be a direct reflection of the times in which the photographs was produced, and says more about the adult viewer than of the child subject.
While Immediate Family propelled Sally Mann into the hall of fame, she clearly indicates in the film that she could have been without all the controversy and that it took her completely by surprise.
© Sally Mann.
The title What Remains relates to Sally Mann’s same-named series on the myriad aspects of death and decay. A series of photographs which may very well be regarded as yet another controversial body of work by some. However once again Sally Mann draws direct inspiration from a dramatic event that unfolds right on her farm, and then goes on to create a whole series of fascinating pictures as a result of this event which director Steven Cantor – and the viewer – follows from conception to completion.
© Sally Mann.
© Sally Mann.
If you’re interested in being given an exclusive and intimate look into the artistic process of one of America’s preeminent photographers, then I can highly recommend that you buy yourself What Remains right now. It is an outstanding photography documentary film.
You won’t regret it, promise!
What Remains runs for 80 minutes.
The DVD also includes several special features including Steven Cantor’s 1994 Oscar-nominated documentary Blood Ties which was shot during the creation of Sally Mann’s Immediate Family series.
Enjoy!
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Sat, Jan 2, 2010
Books and DVDs