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Jan 4, 2018 · In the early 1990s, photographer Sally Mann transformed one of the most banal elements of family life—the sentimental photo album—into discomfiting, divisive, and ultimately unforgettable artwork. For her series “Immediate Family,” she shot her three children (Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia) in vulnerable positions at their summer home in ...
Jun 26, 2015 · Following Sally Mann’s well-received memoir, Hold Still, and years after the controversy over her photographs of her children, a fresh look at a reissue of Immediate Family.
May 7, 2024 · Immediate Family is a groundbreaking photography book by Sally Mann, renowned for its intimate and provocative portrayal of childhood. Published in 1992, the book features black-and-white images capturing the everyday lives of Mann’s three children on their rural Virginia farm.
- ( Head of Content, Editor, Art Writer )
- 1992
- Sally Mann (1951-Present)
- Black-and-white photography book
Apr 3, 2018 · Censorship doesn't take things away or hide them, instead, it exposes cultural taboos and difficult questions. When the Wall Street Journal censored images of Mann’s daughter, she was shocked. “It felt like a mutilation, not only of the image but also of Virginia herself and of her innocence.”
- Introduction
- The Role of The Children
- The Production of The Series
- Spontaneous Or Staged Photos?
- Selected Works
- Analysis
- Why Does This Series Matter?
- Conclusion
Immediate Family is a photography book produced in 1992 by Sally Mann. The groundbreaking and controversialbook was published by the international quarterly journal Aperture and is made of 65 duotone portraits. The book features exclusively Mann’s three children, Virginia, Jessie, and Emmett, who are also on the book’s front cover. Thirteen of the ...
Sally Man initially decided against publishing the book until ten years later, after the last images had been taken. The reason for her reluctance was for her children to get a little bit older to understand the pictures. However, when two of her children, Emmett and Jessie, found out, they dissented, insisting that their mother – Sally Mann – publ...
Something unusual about Sally Mann’s Immediate Familyis that, unlike many portrait pictures, hers were shot in landscape format, using an 8 X 10 view camera. The reason for this could be because the portraits were conservational rather than studio shots. The large size of the images, however, conveys a romantic view of children, as they are unselfc...
Many snaps in the series are a relationship between the artist and her children, merging their imagination and real life, collaborating in an idyllic manner that is unknown and unthinkable to most families. This shared endeavor and mutual respect add weight to the viewer’s view of a serene upbringing. The children in the images were inspired to bec...
Damaged Child
The first image in Immediate Family is Damaged child, which shows Jessie with a black eye, and the resemblance to Lange’s FSA work is hard to miss. In both works, the little girls have an angry, challenging stare, one squinting eye and unisex cropped hair. Both were carefully taken against a flat backdrop on large format cameras. As expected, the image was viewed out of context. The child was depicted by the media as battered at worse and neglected at best. What kind of mother would photograp...
The Perfect Tomato
The image (The Perfect Tomato) is a bit overexposed, and the brightness of her form, her blond hair blending with the background, makes the girl look like an ethereal wood nymph. Another child, Virgin, can be seen sitting in the shade and looks transfixed by this mythical creature, while the person (an adult) whom she sits on her knee seems unmindful of the mystic around her. Jessie herself says that the only thing she could recall was the tomato, which eventually gave the image its title.
Jessie at 5
Another image from Immediate Family, titled Jessie at 5, also caused controversy. Just like in Perfect Tomato, in this, she is also brighter than other characters in the frame – her siblings. She is playing dress-up and is half-dressed, wearing a little makeup alongside a string of beaded-necklace on her neck. She is confidently staring at the photographer (her mother, Sally Mann) behind the camera. Critics claim that Jessie has a knowing lookin this image, implying that she has lost her chil...
The reception of Sally Mann’s Immediate Family shows how the social order was, and sadly, still not ready to accept a mother trying to be an artist, mainly when she uses her kids to convey her messages. Some critics have even gone as far as arguing that Mann didn’t have the right to take shots of her own children the way she did in Immediate Family...
Despite the numerous controversies Immediate Familygenerated, it also embodied a turning point in history. The book can be virtually considered a standing proof in relation to who the public has minimal knowledge of children’s behavior and thinking as they abstain from getting involved in the topics that society often classifies as immoral. The sec...
There is no such thing as a perfect childhood. Ideals change with time, and therefore, utopia is something the world will always strive towards. The consensus is that if Mann had developed these images during the late 1960s or early 1970s, the reception wouldn’t have been that judgmental. Nevertheless, the work still managed to break away from the ...
Photos by Sally Mann have appeared on its cover at least twice: first in 1992, a picture of the three children for a feature article covering her so called disturbing work and again in September 2001, a self-portrait including her two young daughters for the theme issue titled “Women Looking at Women.”.
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Mar 30, 2015 · Candy Cigarette is perhaps the most famous photograph from Immediate Family. It shows Mann's daughter Jessie holding a candy cigarette in her fingers and facing the camera. In what follows, I'll give an explanation and interpretation of this image.
