Month: December 2015

Sally Mann on the Meuse

Elizabeth YeomanLeave a comment

“I get a little panicked when I have before me what the comic-strip character Pogo once referred to as ‘insurmountable opportunities.’ It is easier for me to take ten good pictures in an airplane bathroom than in the gardens at Versailles.” Sally Mann

In this excerpt from her memoir, Hold Still, Sally Mann reflects on the detritus we keep in boxes in the attic, her “long preoccupation with the treachery of memory” and its partner, the treachery of photography, her fascination with family, the southern landscape and death, and the meuse (the trace left in the grass after a small animal such as a rabbit has made its bed there – however, the word also evokes the better known one: “muse.”) I am ordering the book so…more on this later!