It's essentially a decision between uncertainty and certainty and, curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice. That voice is easy to believe, and, as photographer and essayist (and my early mentor) Ted Orland has noted, it leaves me with only two choices: I can resume the slog and take more pictures, thereby risking further failure and despair, or I can guarantee failure and despair by not making more pictures. This article explores Sally Mann's memoir Hold Still (2015) as a complex photo-text that excavates, mediates and shapes memories, both of her family and of the US South more broadly. Hold Still This National Book Award finalist is a revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. The voice of that despair suggests seducingly to me that I should give it up, that I'm a phony, that I've made all the good pictures I'm ever going to, and I have nothing more worth saying. It isn't long before I have to take a breather, having reached the first significant plateau of doubt and lightweight despair. But, then, after sometimes two or three more good ones, the next dozen are duds, and that cavalier stroll becomes an uphill slog. This freak of a good picture inevitably inspires a cocky confidence, making me think this new project will be a stroll in the park. “That's the way it sometimes goes for me: I start on a new series of pictures and right away, in some kind of perverse bait-and-switch, I get a good one.
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