Five Lessons I Learned From Sally Mann’s Autobiography Hold Still

Introduction

Sally Mann's 'Hold Still' is one of my favorite photographer (auto) biographies.

It provides a fascinating and intimate view of her family's history and about how that history influences her life and how she photographs.

Several reviews have been written already of this book. But while most still focus on linking this book to the controversy decades ago around the images of her children, I read it specifically from a viewpoint to find perspectives on documentary photography.

For me, Sally Mann is the ultimate (social) documentary photographer with her images of her family's life and children, her documenting the South in general, and her documenting Civil War battlefields.

And as each documentary photographer does, she provides us with her very personal interpretation of the scene within the rectangle of the photograph.

Now let's look at the five takeaways for documentary photography I found in Hold Still.

There is no objective documentary photography: it creates its own memories

While Sally Mann, as many other photographers, discovered that "Time could be stopped, I thought, and by other hands than those of God." [p. 81], she also recognized that the specific moment captured in a photograph could alter the memory we have of that moment.

As soon as in her introduction, she indicates that looking at old photographs, she "...encountered the malignant twin to imperfect memory: the treachery of photography." [p. xiii], realizing that "No snapshot can do what the attractive mnemonic impediment can: when we outsource that work to the camera, our ability to remember is diminished and what memories we have are impoverished." [p. 301].

Mann provides a great example of photography altering or even replacing real memories when she talks about a photograph of her father. Looking at that image and recalling her memories, she realizes that "It's a picture, a photograph I am thinking of. I don't have a memory of the man; I have a memory of a photograph." [p. 302].

This discrepancy between real memories of an event and how a photographer captured that event creates a challenge explicitly when interpreting documentary photography.

Even the most 'honest' documentary image shows only a part of reality, of what happened; seen through the photographer's eye, directed by the photographer's interpretation.

Or, in Mann's words: "How can a sentient person of the modern age mistake photography for reality? All perception is selection, and all photographs - no matter how objectively journalistic the photographer's intent - exclude aspects of the moment's complexity." [p. 151].

Reading these words made me reflect on how we and people in the future (will) look at iconic documentary photographs. Think, e.g., of Tank Man on Tiananmen square, President Bush standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center, images of the Black Lives Matter marches and so many more.

The moment you capture people, you are taking something from them

Sally Man touches in Hold Still one of the most challenging aspects of documentary and street photography: when and how to capture images of people.

While it can be easy to photograph a person in an image that, in essence, is created for documentary reasons (and I consider street photography as a type of documentary photography), its impact and implications can be more extensive than intended.

What we always have to be aware of is the fact that we might "Catch a person in an awkward moment, in a pose or expression that none of his friends would recognize, and this one mendacious photograph may well outlive all corrective testimony; people will study it for clues to the subject's character long after the death of the last person who could have told them how untrue it is." [p. 308].

What about taking images of people in a demonstration? Or during a moment of anger, a moment of grief, or a time of misfortune?

While we might 'need' to create the picture because of its historical significance or maybe even because we want to challenge a social-economic situation, we always need to realize that "Exploitation lies at the root of every great portrait, and all of us know it. Even the simplest picture of another person is ethically complex, and the ambitious photographer, no matter how sincere, is compromised right from the git-go." [p. 292].

However well-meant our intentions, "Still, the fact remains that many, I daresay even most, good pictures of people come to one degree or another at the expense of the subject." [p. 292].

Reading this, images of homeless people immediately come to mind. However, one specific photograph that I had to consider when reflecting on Mann's words was The Falling Man, taken during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings in 2001.

It, to me, is one of the most impactful images created during that catastrophic event. While it is a picture that never can be unseen, it does not tell us anything about the person in it. And, as a consequence, we should never assume anything about this person. The only thing we are allowed to do is to accept him as part of the event and honor and respect him with the thousands of other victims from that dreadful day.

Forget the photographers; learn from their work

The ethical dilemma regarding the exploitation of the subjects in documentary images, as mentioned in the previous section, also raises another question. Are we allowed to admire images that have documentary value but are created in an unethical manner or by photographers we - for whatever reason - do not like?

But how about the ethics of how the image was created? If someone makes a great image in an 'immoral' way, is it still a great image?

Mann's intriguing answer to these questions is that we should not forget who the photographers were, but we should forget how they were: "Even if I were all of those things, it should make no difference in the way the work is viewed, tempting as it is to make that moral connection." "If we only revere works made by those with whom we'd happily have our granny share a train compartment, we will have a paucity of art." [p. 153].

Also, here, Falling Man immediately comes to mind. Was it ethical to take this image? As the general public and as photographers, we can agree or disagree with the photographer who made it. But according to Mann, that is not to the point. We, the viewers, are not allowed to make that moral connection. We need to look at the image as it presents itself to us: as a witness of a significant historical event.

Captions are essential

But is an image is it presents itself to us sufficient to understand what we are seeing?

I am still struggling with whether to add captions to my images.

Do I need to add captions to clarify the picture (contradictory to the 'common' knowledge that 'a picture is worth more than 1,000 words)?

Or do I want to add captions to direct the viewers' impression to something I specifically want them to associate the picture with?

Mann answers this question clearly: "Just in case anyone could miss it, I made sure that the title drove the comparison home." [p. 114].

She deliberately uses captions to ensure that there is no ambiguity about what an image represents. She doesn't want the viewers of her work to speculate about its content or intent because "All these interpretations of this fictionalized fraction of a second have been posited, as have many more, sometimes to our amusement and sometimes to our distress." [p. 164].

And she doesn't restrict this to captions to individual images. Her essays are woven around images that need words to explain what is happening, why she created specific photos, and why she created in a particular manner. Saying that "That inherent relationship between my writing and my photography has never been clearer to me than it is now." [p. 206]. Explaining that images and words enforce each other.

You need to continue producing

The final lesson I learned from reading Hold Still is that we are obliged, driven, and doomed to continue creating images as photographers.

What photographer has never reached that point that we want to give up? When we think our creative inspiration is gone, our muse left us, and that we are listening to an internal voice that tells us to stop.

"That voice of despair suggests seducingly to me that I should give it up, that I'm a phony, that I've made all the good pictures I'm ever going to, and I have nothing more worth saying." [p. 281 - 282].

But then she goes on: "That voice is easy to believe, and,....., it leaves me with only two choices: I can resume the slog and take more pictures, thereby risking further failure and despair, or I can guarantee failure and despair by not making more pictures. It's essentially a decision between uncertainty and certainty and, curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice." [pp. 282].

And sometimes, it isn't easy to continue, especially after having created one of those rare, specifically great pictures. "Each good new picture always holds despair within it, for it raises the ante for the ones that follow." [p. 283].

The photographer, however, needs to go on, to plod on. Because "Maybe you've made something mediocre - there's plenty of that in any artist's cabinets - but something mediocre is better than nothing, and the near-misses, as I call them, are the beckoning hands that bring you to perfection just around the blind corner." [p. 37].

Conclusion

Reading 'Hold Still' is a great pleasure.

It not only is the (auto) biography of one of my favorite photographers, it provides some learning points for documentary and street photography from someone I consider the ultimate documentary photographer.

Whether she talks about the un-objectivity of photography as a medium that influences our memories, about the morality of taking images, about judging pictures based on who created them, the necessity of captions, or the need to continue creating, these are all valuable lessons to contemplate for my personal work and to take into consideration when looking at the work of other photographers.

I, without any hesitation, recommend this book to all photographers in general and to anyone who creates or wants to create (social) documentary and street photography.

Author: Sally Mann

Title: Hold Still

Year Published: 2015

Cover: Hardcover

Pages: 482

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0-316-24776-4

Buy it at Amazon (note: no affiliation)