A review by sdbecque
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann

4.0

Honestly, I didn't really know anything about Sally Mann when I picked this off the Library New shelf, but I remembered [a:Ann Patchett|7136914|Ann Patchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1371838720p2/7136914.jpg] had said good things about it on her bookstore blog, and that was good enough for me to check it out of the library and give it a try. Here's what Patchett had to say specifically: "In Hold Still, Sally Mann demonstrates a talent for storytelling that rivals her talent for photography. The book is riveting, ravishing — diving deep into family history to find the origins of art. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.”

It's really good. It's about family, and art, and the South and I just couldn't put it down. I found the section on the family photographs she had taken, ones that caused some controversy in the 90s because her children were naked in a lot of them, seems almost quaint in a way compared to the stuff and images I see popular mommy blogs posting about their kids. Mann talks here a lot about the ways in which you can not force children to give you the images her children gave her - in a compelling section she shows the evolution of a photograph she was attempting to create of her son in a river, by showing us the shots that didn't work, and then finally the one that did. The photos she takes are so different than the ones that are popular now, the sort of white, bright super saturated instagam aesthetic, it's almost refreshing to see all that darkness and all that shadow. She also discusses how her children knew when she was behind the camera and they were in front of it that they were acting - a line that I don't think exists in the same way of some of the blogs I follow.

She also talks a lot about memory and photography, which was interesting to hear coming from a photographer, illustrating I think the difference between an idea of 'art photography' and the constant capturing of our lives that's happening with our phones.