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

[r.e.]

LOL. I was going to say she was from the Atlantic coast
might be a state of mind ..

She is, although a couple of hours' drive from the ocean

[darr]

Remainder of that article:

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Then Death...
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/a...red-light.html

Life, living and death are integral facets of being human and the human experience.



Bernice

Thank you for posting and sharing.

[Drew Wiley]

West Coast School; AA assistants : Rondal Partridge (who also assisted Dorothea Lange) made deliberately comical prints of both people and ordinary objects; Don Worth did careful plant studies which graduated into large intricately detailed Cibachrome color prints; Pirkle Jones famously photographed Black Panther activities; someone else photographed color compressed gas vapor explosions. So much for West Coast school stereotypes. Maybe Sexton was more in line with AA subject matter, as well as certain of the earlier figures. But if you do throw in those earlier f/64 types like Edward Weston and Imogene Cunningham, they rarely matched their own f/64 stereotype, and might well have had a number of their own "fuzzy wuzzy" pictorial masterpieces before they recanted. One of the things you do see in common is a dedication to quality printmaking. Wannabee beards and cowboy hats not mandatory, not even Zone System lingo. AA was just one among a number, though the most influential as a technique teacher. Maybe bent noses come from pressing up too close to the ground glass if a properly magnifier is not available. Dunno. I possess none of the above amenities, but do feel connected to the West Coast printmaking tradition.

[h2oman]

Discuss,

Bernice

What do we suppose is meant by "safe?"

[Alan Klein]

I do not photograph to preserve or serve memory.

If photo rob us of our memory, then hand-computers do also, along with the ability to reason.

Calculators and cash machines also rob people of thinking. Many young people just can't do simple arithmetic without them. Cashiers can't give you the right change from a ten dollar bill without checking the ring up or using a calculator.

[jnantz]

Calculators and cash machines also rob people of thinking. Many young people just can't do simple arithmetic without them. Cashiers can't give you the right change from a ten dollar bill without checking the ring up or using a calculator.

yup, we're doomed, I'm so stressed out I need to sit here and pet my my comfort goat as I type this.. the only problem is it keeps eating my keyboa

[r.e.]

~Sally Mann.

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Discuss,

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.

[darr]

yup, we're doomed, i'm so stressed out i need to sit here and pet my my comfort goat as i type this.. The only problem is it keeps eating my keyboa

lol!

[Hugo Zhang]

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

[Michael R]

yup, we're doomed, I'm so stressed out I need to sit here and pet my my comfort goat as I type this.. the only problem is it keeps eating my keyboa

Now this is interesting, and challenging.