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I hate being photographed. My face looks wooden in pictures, as if carved by a sculptor who studied art at a school he found on the back of a pack of matches and had got to about lesson 4. And, of course, nothing really prepares you for what your body looks like on film. It's not just the 10 pounds the lens supposedly adds under your skin-- it's the *way* it does it-- like an incompetent taxidermist had stuffed it in a hurry.
So, when Karen showed up to take my picture in August of 1992(?), I wasn't having any of it. I know every photographic trick in the book and I was determined not to fall for them. Just the facts, ma'am: I was prepared to offer up just the bare minimum. Well, yes, that's just what I did: Within 30 minutes I was stripped down to my birthday suit and was swinging like a Playboy bunny on the tire swing. How did this woman do it?? She is funny, weirder than water and so damn good with a camera. She can charm a snake into a lawnmower, casting a spell over our hum-drum, quotidian lives ...From within that fantasy spell emerge her trademark evocative, vital and honest images.
Sally Mann |
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| all photos © karen kuehn | site design by price |