Margaret Renkl on Sally Mann in today's NYT

[Arthurwg]

I for one am much more interested in her later work, none of which includes controversial subjects.

 

[Trask]

I just read the article, looked at the pictures -- the writing was interesting, the photos were...photos. I certainly didn't find them offensive, just photos of girls as they were. As John Lennon would say, nothing to get hung about. While browsing, I also read another article by Ms. Renkl that I thought interesting -- I had not formally pondered the fact that I have spent my life photographing what I was seeing, while today many, many people spend their time photographing themselves...the so-called selfies. It has never occurred to me to set out to deliberately take my own self-portraits ad-nauseum for the sake of, what, self-aggrandizement? Look-at-me-ism? Talk about a cultural swing...

 

[MattKing]

Thanks to the OP, I have now read the article. It is worth reading.

I just read the article, looked at the pictures -- the writing was interesting, the photos were...photos. I certainly didn't find them offensive, just photos of girls as they were.

The article seems to be inspired by the recent controversy, but it references a different book, so the example photos were and are less likely to be found offensive.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I just read the article, looked at the pictures -- the writing was interesting, the photos were...photos. I certainly didn't find them offensive, just photos of girls as they were. As John Lennon would say, nothing to get hung about. While browsing, I also read another article by Ms. Renkl that I thought interesting -- I had not formally pondered the fact that I have spent my life photographing what I was seeing, while today many, many people spend their time photographing themselves...the so-called selfies. It has never occurred to me to set out to deliberately take my own self-portraits ad-nauseum for the sake of, what, self-aggrandizement? Look-at-me-ism? Talk about a cultural swing...

People always took photos of themselves, such as when they are on vacation, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls, or some statue, or whatever. They also just take shots of themselves standing in the street with nothing interesting behind them. Pride is a universal characteristic of humans. It's why we have mirrors.