Sally Mann - What Remains

After watching the documentary "What Remains" about Sally Mann I felt inspired by her work and her ideas and I gained a lot of respect for her. Previously, I was only some what familiar with her "Immediate Family" series and found the work and the controversy surrounding it interesting. I was drawn to Sally Mann right from the beginning of the film when she said you have to photograph what you love to make good art. This is something that I've always believed and I was happy to see that she shared my philosophy! I've always thought that when I look back at all the photographs I have taken throughout my lifetime I want them to still mean something. I want to create work that will still make me feel something, remind me of something or someone or just document who I was at a certain point in time.
I loved being able to see Mann's entire thought process behind her work as well as seeing it through to fruition. Her "What Remains" collection of work and exhibit wasn't necessarily my favorite types of photographs to look at. In fact, I actually gagged while watching her photograph corpses at the body farm in Tennessee and I still feel nauseous when I think about it. That being said, I think her concepts and theories behind her work were really interesting and well thought out. I think she brings up several valid points when exploring death through her work. I think most people have a different ideas of what a body stops being something they once loved and becomes just a corpse. I think the idea of death and what physically happens to us when we die is just not something many people want to spend time thinking deeply about. No one wants to think about the fact that one day they're loved ones will die some day and that at that point their bodies cease to be a part of that person. I think most people can't separate others from the person they are inside and who they appear to be on the outside. That's why people go through such elaborate spectacles and ceremonies after someone they live dies; they still imagine the body of that person as the person himself.
Another thing I loved about Sally Mann is that her photographs all had a "dark" quality about them. Watch old footage of her photographing her kids for her "Immediate Family" collection and seeing the final product was really strange because in the footage you could tell there was nothing creepy or inappropriate about the images but the final photograph made you think otherwise. I really love this about Mann's artwork; above all, her photographs convey strong emotions. I don't think I would ever be capable or even interested in conveying the exact mood her photographs convey in my own work, but I do aspire to create emotional work that makes people feel, just like her.
Sally Mann, in my mind, is an exceptional and talented photographer whom I have the utmost respect for. I like all of the work she does but I really like her ideas behind work and the ideas of her work itself. I share her belief that there is art all around us, no more so than in the familiar faces and places we see every day.