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May 7, 2024 · Immediate Family delves into themes often considered taboo, such as nudity and the stark realities of childhood, showcasing raw, unidealized moments. The candid shots are intimate, occasionally featuring her children in states of undress or distress, sparking conversations on boundaries in art.
- ( Head of Content, Editor, Art Writer )
- 1992
- Sally Mann (1951-Present)
- Black-and-white photography book
The book predominantly features Mann's three children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, when all were under 10 years old. Thirteen of the pictures show nudity and three show minor injuries; Emmett with a nosebleed, Jessie with a cut and stitches, and Jessie with a swollen eye from an insect bite.
- 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 ...
The subject of several major exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA, her interesting photographs are found in many private and public collections.
Mar 10, 2018 · For a 1998 series of photographs addressing the murder of Emmett Till, Mann traveled to Mississippi and created images of landscapes that his killers would have seen in the days and hours...
Sep 6, 2016 · The name Sally Mann is inseparable from the indelible images of her children, Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, in their unfettered youthful play, sometimes naked, in the countryside.
People also ask
Why did Virginia and Emmet refuse to publish a picture?
What happened to Emmett Till?
What happened to Emmett?
Did Emmett Till's mutilated body spark the Civil Rights Movement?
Sep 7, 2014 · Many historians say that it was seeing the photos of Emmett Till’s mutilated body in THIS ISSUE (Sept 15, 1955) of Jet Magazine that sparked the Civil Rights Movement.
