family.

These images are from Sally Mann’s series entitled Immediate Family. These are some of my favorite pictures we have looked at in class because they are extremely intense and almost eerie, yet also very playful and heartwarming. I think the reason this series works so well is that Mann is photographing her children whom obviously are very comfortable around their mother and the camera. This level of comfort makes the images look very relaxed and peaceful. The intensity if the photos is what really interests me about them. Especially in these two images, the little girls’ eyes stare right at you and draw you into the photo. The fact that this is Mann’s immediate family is very evident and you can feel the connection between mother and child in each photo which makes them much more intimate and powerful images.

For our class assignment of shooting “family” over break I’m hoping to portray a similar kind of closeness and intimacy as in Mann’s photos. I’m not sure how I will go about that yet, shooting my best friends may be the best way to go seeing that I am more comfortable around them than my actual family. I think the most important thing when shooting a project like this is exactly what Sally Mann accomplished: simply showing a group of people and the intense relationships between them.

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."