Manns book is so much more than an autobiography. It's a genuinely important mediation on, well, a lot of things. Race. Family. America. Death. By a smart and hard headed woman.
My opinion is that she is easily the finest living photographer, but by no means an easy one. Hard headed woman. You think immediate family is tough? Have a go at what remains
This is work that has literally changed me, the way art is supposed to. Also, she is a lovely person.
Finest living etc.
That's, as you write, opinion. There are so many wonderful women snappers around - and always have been - that trying to rate them on a gender scale is silly, and rating them on a even wider one here even more risky! But opinion is your right, too.
I am very much taken with her photography myself, hence this thread.
Now, would I rate her olde worlde techniques as particulary great? No. I rate her traditional techniques, done with a very clear eye, as her triumph. Perhaps she felt an inner need to explore antiquated methods too, but that doesn't imply that they are better or even as interesting. There is no value in aping the past unless it can offer something better than what is currently available. Of course, curiosity is a factor, and perhaps commercial expediency too, but those are different matters.
But is art supposed to change one? I'd be more inclined to believe it's there to encourage one in doing what one always wanted to do; that others manage to make it work is the encouragement for me. I have not felt that I want to be a second Sally Mann; I only think she does what she does remarkably well and that her eye is superb.
I don't know her personally, and so don't know if her real persona is one I'd embrace, but then few are.
From what I have learned, she has followed the dream, paid and is still paying her dues, and that's pretty cool enough for me.
Rob