37. Tears

I am breaking a promise to Abbey that I wouldn't post this photograph. It has such raw emotion that I can't help myself. I spend most my time with my kids, so the subject will be repeat offender.

Abbey was overly tired from a sleepover birthday party followed by the first soccer game of the spring season. She lost it over a Slurpee - I still don't understand what happened. I got the cruel (and some what neglectful) idea to decide to photograph her when all she wanted was mom. The more I tried to solicit her cooperation the more angry she became. I think her exact words were, "You are torturing me". The whole process didn't take longer than a couple of minutes, but I am sure that it will cost me a bundle in psychology bills later in life. As a mother I felt enormously guilty, but as a photographer it was like watching a train wreck... I couldn't help myself.

No one would question Sally Mann's work as a photographer, but her photographs do ask us to question her competency as a mother. She uses a large format film camera that takes several minutes to set up, focus, and compose. Each of her photographs is a precisely crafted image, not a quick snapshot with an iPhone. The lengthy picture taking process has a lot to do with this accusation of possible maternal neglect. Her images include a daughter laying on a urine soaked bedsheet, a son with a bloody nose, another prepubescent daughter nude on display in front of a male neighbor. Most mothers would first choose to help their children, but Sally Mann instead reached for the large, slow to set up camera to first document the experience before (if ever) she intervened.

So where I love the above image of Abbey, as a mother, I think it would be difficult to come anywhere near the working process of Sally Mann's. Although this weekend, I did come closer to her working methods than I ever thought I would.

Sally Mann