Kassidy Powell- Sally Mann

Sally Mann is a photographer whose works have been highly criticized because they are believed to be child pornography. I disagree with this because from what I have read, Mann's children have known and understood the types of images their mother made of them as well as the ideas that other people could get from the images themselves. I don't believe that Sally Mann was ever in the wrong, because her images were to photograph her children in their preadolescence rather than trying to sexualize them or turn them into objects. Personally I like Mann's work in the idea that her images are sharp, but also incredibly dark. I like that all of her images are of her children as a mother looking at her kids and what they do.  I don't like that people automatically go to the idea that nudity is equivalent to pornography. While there are some things that can make it more pornographic, overall, I don't believe that nudity is created outrightly with the idea to be pornographic. Obviously there are certain images where that's just not true, but with Sally Mann's work- she was just photographing her children. There was nothing else going on that was bad. She allowed her children to do their work, and according to what I read in the New York Times, her children knew what was going on. They got irritated when Mann was going to release her collection, "Immediate Family" in 10-15 years after she was done photographing them so that her children would fully understand. From what I read in the Times article, the children got incredibly irritated and so Mann and her husband had a psychologist talk to them so that they would understand if the children really knew what the consequences and perceptions could be once the collection was released. I really like Mann’s work in how it’s so dark and the images are so put together and feeling. They aren’t just lame pieces of work that don’t really intrigue the audience. Looking at Mann’s images makes me wonder how she got the ideas for everything and why she chose to continue making images in the way that she was even though there were so many comments on child pornography. I like that in her artist statements in the Times that she said she was just doing what she thought was the best to be a mother. I like that idea, because in a hundred years, people might not remember her, but they’ll be able to see the images and possibly get over the immediate reaction of pornography and rather, see it as art.

sources: 

https://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/11/theory-sally-manns-immediate-family.html
http://www.artnet.com/artists/sally-mann/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/magazine/the-disturbing-photography-of-sally-mann.html