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Sally Mann Quotes

Powerful Sally Mann for Daily Growth

I taught up in Maine a couple of times and wasn't able to take a single picture. All that blue sky! Ugh. Sparkling clear air, just terrible. I couldn't do it.

- Sally Mann

Sky, Clear, Couple, Maine

I have three libraries. As a gift, a friend alphabetized and organized my main library of novels, history books, and nonfiction. Then I have a photo-book collection. Then there's this nearly whole room of my childhood books. I've also got cookbooks and a big collection of horse-related books.

- Sally Mann

Gift, Big, Nearly, Nonfiction

I baked bread, hand-ground peanuts into butter, grew and froze vegetables, and, every morning, packed lunches so healthful that they had no takers in the grand swap-fest of the lunchroom.

- Sally Mann

Bread, Butter, Had, Takers

I don't know what the instinct is, to save every report card, every half-sentence scribbled note, but my mother did it pretty effectively, and I've done it to a fare-thee-well.

- Sally Mann

Pretty, Instinct, Note, Report

Maintaining the dignity of my subjects has grown to be, over the years, an imperative in my work, both in the taking of the pictures and in their presentation.

- Sally Mann

Work, Over, Subjects, Maintaining

I feel I'm a strange mixture of insecurity and strength. Most of us, probably most people. I'm transferring that same concept to the people I photograph.

- Sally Mann

Strength, Feel, Concept, Transferring

I had written my master's thesis on Ezra Pound on 'The Cantos.' And don't ask me about it. I don't remember anything about it.

- Sally Mann

Master, About, Had, Pound

I'm just the opposite of a lot of photographers who want everything to be really, really sharp. And they're always, you know, stopping it down to F64.

- Sally Mann

Want, Always, Opposite, Stopping

I just started taking pictures, and it was - it was an instant love affair. It was just ecstatic.

- Sally Mann

Love, Started, Ecstatic, Affair

The thing that makes writing so difficult is you don't have the element of serendipity. At least with a photograph, you can set up the camera, and something might happen. You might be a lousy photographer, but you can get a good picture if you just take enough of them.

- Sally Mann

Good, Writing, Least, Lousy

I have no animus toward digital, though I still pretty much take everything on a silver-based negative, either a wet plate or just regular silver 8x10. But I've started messing a little bit with scanning the negative and then reworking it just slightly.

- Sally Mann

Plate, Messing, Slightly, Regular

I'm not a good photographer, not a good writer. I'm a pretty regular person whose insecurity is so pervasive that it makes me always feel vulnerable.

- Sally Mann

Pretty, Always, Good Writer, Regular

I have a vivid, apocalyptic imagination.

- Sally Mann

Imagination, Vivid

Eventually, my highbrow parents, who so hated the Eisenhower suburban culture of the 1950s that the only magazines they subscribed to were 'The Atlantic' and 'The New Yorker,' broke down and got 'Life' magazine.

- Sally Mann

New, Broke, Highbrow, Subscribed

I don't like memoirs. I think they're self-serving, and people use them to settle scores, and I really tried not to do that. You have to have a really interesting life to justify memoir, and my life has been pretty ho-hum.

- Sally Mann

My Life, Been, I Think, Self-Serving

When I read, I take notes and underline things. So reading is a vigorous process for me, but I read in bed. My poor husband is trying to go to sleep, and I'm reaching over him to get the Post-it notes.

- Sally Mann

Husband, Bed, Notes, Vigorous

At the age of 16, my father's father dropped dead of a heart attack. And I think it changed the course of his life, and he became fascinated with death. He then became a medical doctor and obviously fought death tooth and nail for his patients.

- Sally Mann

Medical, I Think, Became, Tooth

Very few males have the confidence to appear vulnerable.

- Sally Mann

Very, Appear, Vulnerable, Males

It's usually so fraught when you're taking a picture. I work with an 8-by-10 view camera and there's a, you know, hood that I put over my head, and it's tricky and complicated.

- Sally Mann

Work, Over, Fraught, Camera

The whole nature of photography has changed with the advent of a camera in everybody's hand.

- Sally Mann

Nature, Everybody, Advent, Camera

The two sensibilities, the visual and the verbal, have always been linked for me - in fact, while reading a particularly evocative passage, I will imagine what the photograph I'd take of that scene would look like, even with burning and dodging notes. Maybe everyone does this.

- Sally Mann

Fact, Been, Notes, Sensibilities

You start blocking out things, and that's a really important part of taking a picture is the ability to isolate what you're - what you're concentrating on.

- Sally Mann

Start, Part, Concentrating, Blocking

I'm not an ardent feminist - well, maybe I am an ardent feminist. I just roll my eyes at the way women are constantly used and how sensitive men are about photographs of themselves.

- Sally Mann

Maybe, Roll, Ardent, Women Are

Each time you take a good picture, you have the wonderful feeling of exhilaration... and almost instantly, the flip side. You have this terrible, terrible anxiety that you've just taken your last good picture.

- Sally Mann

Last, Side, Almost, Flip

I couldn't be Susan Sontag. I'm not very good with abstract thought. I always just take to the emotional core of me.

- Sally Mann

Thought, Always, Very, Susan

Matte digital prints are gorgeous, don't you agree? But the glossy digital prints, I just can't stand that paper.

- Sally Mann

Digital, Agree, Paper, Prints

I have had a fascination with death, I think, that might be considered genetic for a long time. My father had the same affliction, I guess.

- Sally Mann

Think, I Think, Genetic, Affliction

When I read something, I picture that scene in that detail. That becomes very similar to composing a photo in real life.

- Sally Mann

Very, Similar, Read, Composing

I try and take the commonplace - and some of it is writ large, like death - take the commonplace and make it universally resonant, revelatory, and beautiful at the same time.

- Sally Mann

Some, Resonant, Large, Writ

It's a touchy subject, but as a Southerner, you can't ignore our history any more than a Renaissance painter can ignore the Virgin Mary. And it's impossible to drive down a road or eat a vegetable or pass a church without being reminded of slavery.

- Sally Mann

Church, Southerner, Subject, Vegetable

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