Sally Mann’s Immediate Family: The Unflinching and Unafraid Childhood
From 1984 50 1991, Sally Mann used photography to detail the complex childhoods of her three children; Emmet, Jessie, and Virginia. “Immediate Family” is a collection of photographs taken in rural Virginia, where the children grew up. Mann states that these photographs are “of my children living their lives here too. Many of these pictures are intimate, some are fictitions and some are fantastic, but most are of ordinary things that every mother has seen.” At the time of the first gallery opening, Mann was unaware of the media attention she would attract, and the controversy that her work would stir up. To her, they were only maternal photographs of her children. Yet to others, they were child pornography and the mark of an irresponsible mother.