On Tuesday, photographer Sally Mann dove into her creative process in a discussion about her new book, “Art Work: On the Creative Life,” at a Rhode Island School of Design event.
Mann is a three-time recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and was named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time magazine in 2001. She is most recognized for her black-and-white portraits of her family and rural Southern landscapes. This is the first time Mann has visited RISD since 2012.
Her book, released on Tuesday, documents Mann’s creative outlook on capturing the “perfect” picture. During the talk, Mann read an excerpt from the book reflecting on the countless trials and errors of photography.
A slideshow of alternative shots of “Candy Cigarette” — one of Mann’s most recognized works — played in the background until finally landing on the frame Mann described as “the one.”
Giving another example, Mann also spoke about her frustrations with not being able to capture the “perfect” picture of her daughter holding the dead body of a duck on her family farm.
“In the end, the first picture was the best,” she told the audience. It was “just not good enough.”
In the question-and-answer portion of the event — led by RISD photography professors Steven Smith, Brian Ulrich and RISD Associate Professor Jung Joon Lee — Mann emphasized the necessity of failure in order to triumph in the process of art.
The appreciation of failures and imperfections also extended to the work itself, specifically referring to “Untitled (Deep South #16),” a picture of a Southern landscape with ink smudged across.
“That’s the power of photography,” Mann said. “People think it’s real.”
At one point, a student in the crowd asked Mann if she is “constantly setting up pictures” in her head. “If I don’t have a camera with me, I’m not thinking of photographs,” Mann responded. “But, I do walk around a lot with that eight by 10 format in my head.”
While the event was attended by RISD students, many crowdmembers were local residents unaffiliated with the school. One of these residents, Patrick Noonan, is a Warwick-based photographer inspired by Mann’s work.
Like Mann, Noonan “started out doing landscape portraits without people, and then moved into mostly people,” he told The Herald after the event. “A lot of my work is in black and white.”
Given their similar backgrounds in photography, Noonan looked forward “to see where (Mann was) at now in her life,” he said.
