So, forget all of my pictures of the world ….what will be important is all the work i did “on the side”…the family snaps…yup, those will be IT i am sure….knowing that now makes me wish i had tried harder…but, i guess that is the whole point…i didn’t TRY…it simply happened…. Sally Mann Charlottesville, Virginia 2008
My love of family and extended family runs deep…my relationships at Burn, Magnum, NatGeo, are akin to familial bonds (often with all the drama to go with it!!)…that will lead to yet another book (trilogy?) no joke just called “Photographers (i have known)” for i have religiously documented them (i have everybody) as well and all of my students and Burn audience etc etc etc…for those of you who have met me, i most likely have taken your picture, right?….so this work is family as well…
In other words it is a movable feast…always a work in progress and always ready to be shown at any time….for this one there could never be an end and at any point it is finished…i can do a 15 print show as i did in Madrid, or a 100 print show, or a 1,000 print show using the contact sheets alone, or a combo and with hard copy albums and big prints and videos, well, the whole bit……a two book boxed set…one of my own family who i have documented since 13 til yesterday….and the other the med format work of families from all over my country….this of course could have no end internationally once i complete the U.S. The incredible revelation for me on this one was that i was finished as soon as i started….so, i am done…. I am always telling my students and those i mentor that the most obvious and best projects are just at your front door….so it is a concept i endorse and have indeed lived…yet, i need to re-learn it all the time and the subtleties therein…so sure, it was clear and obvious that i would two years ago launch on a drive across country and do medium format work on American Family…keyed off all the work i had done on my own family…good idea, and i moved on it…what never occurred to me until a combo of the family exhibit in Madrid last spring (which i viewed as a work in progress at the time) and something my son Bryan said to me yesterday, is that i was indeed “done” with this project after taking the very first picture….after all, isn’t a family album complete even if there is only one picture in it ? how many pictures does a family album make? everyone always asks me regarding projects “how do you know when you are finished?”….my usual answer is that you just “know”…you simply feel it is done…
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