sixth blog

Sally Mann ethics study

Published 29/11/2025 12:34

In 1992 Photographer Sally Mann released a photo book titled Immediate Family, A complete collection of black and white photos of Mann’s children, a book that would come to be one of the most controversial Photgraphic collections of all time. Many of the photos are sweet and intimate photos of the children playing with makeup or blowing bubbles, but a large amount of photos feature the children naked or emotionally charged images that seem intrusive into the childrens lives. These photos were all taken on 8x10 negatives at their rural virginia summer cabin between 1984-1991, then originally published Jannuary 1st 1992. The Nude photos of her children in this book of course spawned controversy, striking up plenty of conversations and critisim on the subject of intrusive imagery of children in art, but these were not the only controversial images in the book, as a lot of the other photos show a different version of childhood that arent often displayed and show a raw and unidealized version of childhood. Plenty of the photos show controversial topics such as the children hurt, her children with black eyes and bloodied noses, a topic often hidden from view as most people dont want to address the violence tht can befall children. While many people looked at this book at the surface level and called it “Gross”, “Immoral” And “Unethical”, it was praised and still is for the unfiltered and raw approach Mann took to photographing her children, taking away all the plain purity that people often saw in children and instead creating dark images that completely contrasts traditional family values. Despite its controversial content the book creates some interesting perspective into how childhood is percieved and how Mann flips the modern perceptions on its head and creates a very interesting conversation around childhood censorship and privacy, however the controversy still largely overshadows this type of conversation. Overall, the book is very interesting in the fact the book is made in a way that almost seems to try and create controversy, using intrusive photos of Mann’s children to show a very different side of childhood people might not expect, in an attempt to create conversation around how childhood is presented in media as well as how censorship is applied around children.