Don’t get between me and a really good picture in the darkroom, because then I want to go straight to the darkroom and develop it. But once that’s done, I’m fine. – Sally Mann
Eventually, my highbrow parents, who so hated the Eisenhower suburban culture of the 1950s that the only magazines they subscribed to were ‘The Atlantic’ and ‘The New Yorker,’ broke down and got ‘Life’ magazine. – Sally Mann
I don’t know what the instinct is, to save every report card, every half-sentence scribbled note, but my mother did it pretty effectively, and I’ve done it to a fare-thee-well. – Sally Mann
I’m not a good photographer, not a good writer. I’m a pretty regular person whose insecurity is so pervasive that it makes me always feel vulnerable. – Sally Mann
When I read, I take notes and underline things. So reading is a vigorous process for me, but I read in bed. My poor husband is trying to go to sleep, and I’m reaching over him to get the Post-it notes. – Sally Mann
I think the media is a fear-mongering operation. They love to rile their viewership up or to scare them. – Sally Mann
I taught up in Maine a couple of times and wasn’t able to take a single picture. All that blue sky! Ugh. Sparkling clear air, just terrible. I couldn’t do it. – Sally Mann
Writing is much, much harder than taking pictures because you have to man-haul it all out of your insides. – Sally Mann
It’s not a lack of confidence, because I can’t argue with the fact that I’ve taken some good pictures. But it’s just a raw fear that you’ve taken the last one. – Sally Mann
When I read something, I picture that scene in that detail. That becomes very similar to composing a photo in real life. – Sally Mann
When you look at your life as an artist, you do see that when you get to be 60, you’re coming – this is the last chapter. – Sally Mann
I have no animus toward digital, though I still pretty much take everything on a silver-based negative, either a wet plate or just regular silver 8×10. But I’ve started messing a little bit with scanning the negative and then reworking it just slightly. – Sally Mann
It’s a touchy subject, but as a Southerner, you can’t ignore our history any more than a Renaissance painter can ignore the Virgin Mary. And it’s impossible to drive down a road or eat a vegetable or pass a church without being reminded of slavery. – Sally Mann
I’m the weird person who completely loved and devoured ‘Middlemarch’ but who has not finished far shorter and more readable books due to distraction or the fact that by some miracle I am sleeping through the night. – Sally Mann
Though I made my share of mistakes, as all parents do, I was devoted to my kids. I walked them to school every morning and walked back to pick them up at 3. – Sally Mann
Maintaining the dignity of my subjects has grown to be, over the years, an imperative in my work, both in the taking of the pictures and in their presentation. – Sally Mann
It’s usually so fraught when you’re taking a picture. I work with an 8-by-10 view camera and there’s a, you know, hood that I put over my head, and it’s tricky and complicated. – Sally Mann
I have three libraries. As a gift, a friend alphabetized and organized my main library of novels, history books, and nonfiction. Then I have a photo-book collection. Then there’s this nearly whole room of my childhood books. I’ve also got cookbooks and a big collection of horse-related books. – Sally Mann
To be able to take my pictures, I have to look, all the time, at the people and places I care about. – Sally Mann