As a responsible and influential photography blogger, my job at this point is to write a lengthy post in which I enumerate an enormous laundry list of gear, each named with an affiliate link. I've seen at least two of these things and it's not like I monitor the entire blogosphere.
But I'm not gonna do that. Partly because you can't buy new most of the gear I use, and mainly because No.
My implied Christmas purchases post is just this: buy a copy of Sally Mann's Hold Still for yourself, and another one for every single person you know. It didn't win the National Book Award, but it was justly nominated. I can't tell you whether Ta-nehisi Coates deserved the win or not since I didn't read his book.
I can tell you that I approve of Sally Mann in roughly the same way that 13 year old girls approve of Taylor Swift.
Here are some affiliate links you should use to buy the book if you must buy it from amazon, which you ought not. You ought to buy it from a local bookstore.
If you do use these links, someone who isn't me gets paid:
Foreigners, you are on your own, I'm afraid. I'm confident you can work it out, however!
I bought "Hold Still", not so much on your recommendation but because of who Sally Mann is and also based on her book, "Immediate Family." Both of them are wonderful; "Hold Still" is the more wonderful (wonderfuller? JUST KIDDING!) of the two.
ReplyDeleteI went to see the Sally Mann exhibition "The Family and the Land" held at the Photographers Gallery in London in 2010. Her work is not to everybody's taste, but I found many of the images very powerful, when you walk into a room to be confronted by huge images of rotting corpses, it certainly has an effect on the senses, her interest in this subject, coupled with the link to the American civil war, I found fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI purchased the book earlier this Summer with intent of reading it while on vacation. Made the mistake of starting it before vacation, and could barely put it down long enough to eat and sleep. She's probably a better writer than photographer.
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