Cheap Immediate Family (Book) (Sally Mann, Reynolds Price) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Immediate Family

Disturbing and Transcendental Art
All of the photographs in this collection were taken with an 8x10 view camera, even those that have the appearance of candid, random snapshots. Many of the images are carefully manipulated in the darkroom to give one of the subjects an eerie, almost angelic luminescence in scenes dominated by hardship, tragedy, and crushing rural poverty. Sally Mann is a major artist, supported by Guggenheim, NEH and NEA grants, and this is some of her very best work. Readers should be warned that some will consider this work to border on child pornography. While this is absolutely not the case (and I vigorously support prosecution of those who exploit children in any fashion), in some localities this could almost be a "dangerous" book to own. Sally Mann's disturbing and transcendent vision will outlast our current hysteria and misunderstanding and will endure as photographic literature.

---

CHECK OUT these photos! Sally Mann is... um... the Mann.
POSSIBLY MY FAVORITE BOOK! I carry this book with me everywhere I go. I bring it with me on two-day trips. It's ridiculous. Sally Mann is an incredible photographer and in this book, contrary to previous criticism, she photographs her children in DECENT and human, natural poses (nudity reigns, but tastefully so). She is by far my favorite photographer and, as a photo major in college, constantly cures me of those dreaded uninspired days of my life. Every time I flip through this book, I'm crazed with new ideas and inspiration. Not to mention awe.

---

Rich and honest images
The summers of one's youth in the Blue Ridge are unmistakable. The heat comes up by ten. You head to the ponds and rivers for relief. By the blazing arc of midday you play jacks or Uno under an oak. Evening comes; hotdogs are grilled for miles, and an immense cool falls like a hush between the pines. Mann captures this reverie with utmost grace in her unalloyed images of her children. In Mann we discover a eye keen to the wonderful contrasts of black and white. Some images offer striking, ambiguous detail; others approach portraiture.
If her children's nudity draws criticism from those of a certain political stripe, I can only surmise it comes from that small, unlucky handful of Virginians who did not have the opportunity to march outside on an August dog day with nothing on. Frankly, it's all you want to wear in August whether you are eight or fifty eight.
These images tug strongly at the heartstrings of, not just those of us lucky enough to have spent our youths in rural Virginia, but anyone who has deep set memories of childhood and place. A rich and lasting collection.