Sally Mann’s first solo exhibition graces the Photographers’ Gallery in central London as an edited version of the touring exhibition, from the 18 June-19 September 2010. Photographer Sally Mann (b. 1951, USA) has become world renowned for her large black and white photographs. First coming to prominence for Immediate Family (1984-94), a series of intimate and revealing portraits of her three children, Mann’s work is deeply rooted in both her family and the landscape she lives and works in. Taken over a period of 10 years, Immediate Family illustrates the powerful relationship between mother and child, capturing the rawness and vulnerability of her children playing and acting towards the camera in their hometown, Virginia. The exhibition is introduced, however, with Faces, forming the final part of a longer series of work on display called What Remains. Faces is a compilation of up-close prints of Mann’s three, young children: Emmett, Jessie and Virginia, considered a more intimate extension of Immediate Family. The portraits of a grainy and burnt-out quality, classically frame her children’s faultless faces, freezing their angelic youth in time. The series What Remains collaborates family with landscape, the latter displayed in a selection of beautifully arranged portraits of decomposing bodies returning to the land. Delicately touching upon the social taboo of death, Mann coaxes us to reflect upon our own mortality and place within nature’s order.

Mann’s collection can be described as expressive and personal, offering a sense of physicality through her use of both intimate material, combined with prints using antique cameras and early photographic techniques. Her trademark of the ghostly lit and flawed finish is a result of Mann’s unique handling of the camera. Not only does she use the wet-plate collodian process (a technique introduced in 1981), Mann often makes use of the back of her truck as a temporary dark-room when making work outside. The accidents that happen in the dust and the dirt of her outdoor working environment all leave their marks, but it is the drips and stains across the prints that is all part of the appeal for Mann, as it is the appeal for many others, finding it difficult to critique a collection of work displaying such understated chastity.