Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67415 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 78 pages

Customer Reviews

Recommended for those who appreciate art photography
A very good book which deals intimately with family life. Sally Mann is clearly the loving mother of some very self-possessed and self-aware children. I was concerned before I saw the book about some of the tales that I had heard regarding the content. Frankly, anyone who finds this book prurient needs psychiatric help. Some of the pictures are shocking, it is true, but not in that sense- the viewer is shocked by an awareness of their own inability to help when confronted with the image of a boy with a smashed nose and lip or a girl, unconscious on the surgeon's table, with multiple stitches in a gash on her forehead. Mann understands her antecedents, and there are strong echoes of Weston and Eugene Smith to name but two in this work. The fact is that bringing up children (and I speak as the father of four) is both shocking and beautiful, as are these pictures.

Universally appealing
I was unaware of the controversy regarding Mrs. Mann's work until recently and find the harsh words totally unwarranted and the attitudes unbelievable. This book reflects her understanding of what it's like to be a child in a rural environment and has NOTHING to do with pornography.

The nudity which some find so shocking is natural for kids. It's not until later when we learn our bodies are "bad" that we stop displaying them. That some attach the nudity in the shots of her children with sex speaks poorly of them and those who perpetuate this attitude.

This is a wonderful book that most of you will appreciate and identify with, making you recall memories of your own youth. And, if you were brought up in a suburban area you'll even learn some of what it's like being a kid in the country. However, if your looking for a book with snapshots of smiling kids, you'll be disappointed. This is a photo essay on an all too brief time of our lives, with the pictures being neither cute nor pretty, the photographer having chosen instead to show emotion and reality, and has done so beautifully.

Full of emotion....a rare find
When I first opened this book, I was shocked by the images of a bloody nose and a cut eye. But as I perused this book, I relized that all of these photographs showed different sides of childhood. The pain, the joy, and the unadulterated innocence. Sally Mann is truely talented in the art of photography. This book touched my heart like it has never been touched before.