"If I wanted to be safe, I would have done Landscapes."

[Vaughn]

What do we suppose is meant by "safe?"

I take it as doing work that is personally non-challenging and/or that is socially/artistically acceptable.

I personally have found landscape to be easy, and thus a particularly difficult and challenging genre to work in.

[peter schrager]

Wait, I thought her book Deep South is all about landscapes. Some quite impressive plates.

what someone says is not meant to be held against them for the rest of their career...so technically this conversation is moot because yes she has done some amazing landscape work that reflects her southern roots. it was really the same as when she photographed her children; that's what they were doing
Sally Mann is intricately tied to the land and her photos reflect that. her kids were playing on her property that she owns and holds onto for dear life.
if you care to know something about the artist read her book...aside from the insights she happens to be a remarkable writer

[Hugo Zhang]

what someone says is not meant to be held against them for the rest of their career...so technically this conversation is moot because yes she has done some amazing landscape work that reflects her southern roots. it was really the same as when she photographed her children; that's what they were doing
Sally Mann is intricately tied to the land and her photos reflect that. her kids were playing on her property that she owns and holds onto for dear life.
if you care to know something about the artist read her book...aside from the insights she happens to be a remarkable writer

Yes I have read all her books and really love her work.

[Tin Can]

I consider Sally Mann's book 'Hold Still' a revelation of human thought/experience

I read it a few years ago and will again, soon

She addresses family, art, death and more

Her LF selfies inspire me

I just bought her DVD 'What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann'

which I have seen once, time to study

[h2oman]

I don't think that Mann was asserting that some photographic subjects or genres are inherently easier or less worthy than others. It's a short step from that assertion to dismissing some of history's greatest artists, and important works by artists whose work includes landscapes, as second-rate. Where would you like to start? Breugel, El Greco, Turner, Canaletto, Constable, van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne? I don't believe for a second that Mann was suggesting that.

My interpretation of her statement is that she believed that it would have been safe, psychologically and financially, for her to continue to make landscape photographs, but that she decided to leave that subject behind and take what was, for her, a risk. Presumably nobody is going to disagree that she took a risk, indeed quite a big risk.

If my interpretation is correct, the subject that you have raised in this thread is quite an interesting one: the role of risk/pushing personal boundaries in development as a photographer.

All well put.

[h2oman]

I take it as doing work that is personally non-challenging and/or that is socially/artistically acceptable.

I speak now not for Sally Mann, but for the rest of us. What is interesting to me is that what is socially/artistically acceptable seems particularly dependent on the audience. I crudely break audiences down into three categories: the general public (most of my friends), photographers (members here) and arsty-fartsy types (art school academics, for example). "Safety" with any one of these groups might equate to risk-taking with one of the others...

[peter schrager]

I speak now not for Sally Mann, but for the rest of us. What is interesting to me is that what is socially/artistically acceptable seems particularly dependent on the audience. I crudely break audiences down into three categories: the general public (most of my friends), photographers (members here) and arsty-fartsy types (art school academics, for example). "Safety" with any one of these groups might equate to risk-taking with one of the others...

glad you're so amazing to categorically classify people in a whole 3 groups!
I think everyone is an individual and just maybe it's your responsibility to give them new eyes

[Vaughn]

I speak now not for Sally Mann, but for the rest of us. What is interesting to me is that what is socially/artistically acceptable seems particularly dependent on the audience. I crudely break audiences down into three categories: the general public (most of my friends), photographers (members here) and arsty-fartsy types (art school academics, for example). "Safety" with any one of these groups might equate to risk-taking with one of the others...

I was just referring to safety as in trying to provide income...not necessarily public opinion.

[John Layton]

Any time I truly follow my heart…thinking nothing of “my audience” or the “acceptance” of others, thinking not even of what might be my own physical/mental limitations - but just allowing myself to become fully enmeshed and engaged in my work…ultimately allowing the “whatever is out there” to align itself with the “whatever is in here,” using whatever medium which happens to best facilitate this process, the tools of which can become transparent and without dimension - my own ego suspended - so that congruence and symmetry between myself and what’s out there can approach (but never quite reach) Perfection…then by default I’m not giving thought to the aspect of risk, and thereby fully accepting the possibility of risk.

Landscape. People. Poop on the pavement…does not matter so long as the above holds true.

[Bernice Loui]

Yes indeediee, That 1992 VC article about Sally Mann notes a turning point in her life and her work. From previously doing what was "acceptable" art and marketable Foto work to focusing her artistic work towards her own life and family to be at that time. In many ways, this was a bold move for Sally at that time in her life. It was a risk, by taking that risk Sally produced a body of work that has become a signature style all her own..

Critics from that time also put Sally in with the images from Jock Sturges of child and adolescent nudes.. Visited Jock back when he lived in SF, did not like his vibe at all.. Shortly after that visit, the FBI appeared and confiscated piles of his stuff.. Decades later:
https://petapixel.com/2021/11/18/con...al-misconduct/

Then we come to Robert Mapplethorpe, the NEA and politics..
https://apnews.com/article/fb8ba529d...d2e70299565684

Sally Mann was walking a fine line of being "safe" back then due to the political climate and what was considered "acceptable" as artistic expression.


Bernice

I don't think that Mann was asserting that some photographic subjects or genres are inherently easier or less worthy than others. It's a short step from that assertion to dismissing some of history's greatest artists, and important works by artists whose work includes landscapes, as second-rate. Where would you like to start? Breugel, El Greco, Turner, Canaletto, Constable, van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne? I don't believe for a second that Mann was suggesting that.

My interpretation of her statement is that she believed that it would have been safe, psychologically and financially, for her to continue to make landscape photographs, but that she decided to leave that subject behind and take what was, for her, a risk. Presumably nobody is going to disagree that she took a risk, indeed quite a big risk.

If my interpretation is correct, the subject that you have raised in this thread is quite an interesting one: the role of risk/pushing personal boundaries in development as a photographer.