{"id":710704,"date":"2026-01-21T11:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/710704\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T11:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:23:10","slug":"sally-mann-says-film-is-so-expensive-and-has-started-shooting-digital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/710704\/","title":{"rendered":"Sally Mann Says ‘Film is So Expensive’ and Has Started Shooting Digital"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

While film has experienced a renaissance in recent years \u2014 largely driven by younger photographers who appreciate its retro charm \u2014 it is an expensive endeavor. <\/p>\n

So expensive in fact that famed large format photographer Sally Mann, who shot to fame for her film photographs of her children, says she has started shooting on digital cameras \u2014 and in color.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just loving it,\u201d Mann tells the BBC\u2019s Desert Island Discs<\/a> radio program. \u201cIt\u2019s so easy. Color is so easy, and so much fun.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes such a difference. It\u2019s so time-consuming and laborious to work with an 8\u00d710 view, and the film is now so expensive,\u201d Mann continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hate spending that much money on each shot; you\u2019re always second-guessing yourself, you\u2019re saying, \u2018Is that good enough? Is that really worth $12?’\u201d <\/p>\n

Mann contrasts film with digital, where \u201cyou just shoot and if you don\u2019t like it, boom, gone, off your computer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Of course Mann hasn\u2019t just gone for a standard digital camera. While she didn\u2019t reveal which body she is using, the glass is a \u201c1940s old Leica lens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m shooting down in the Mississippi Delta where you can\u2019t take a bad picture because of the gorgeous lyricism and dream-like quality of the light down there,\u201d Mann tells Desert Island Discs. \u201cI have this funky old lens and it doesn\u2019t handle light very well, so there\u2019s this glow to everything.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Digital Camera World notes<\/a>, Mann still carries around her 8\u00d710 Deardorff sheet-film view camera in the car. But the enthusiasm for her new digital setup shines through in Desert Island Discs, a program where guests pick the music they would like to bring with them if they were stranded on an imaginary desert island. <\/p>\n

Seized Photographs <\/p>\n

Last year, Mann hit the headlines when police seized her work<\/a> from an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, after a complaint was made about her photos.<\/p>\n

\"\"The photos were from her most famous project Immediate Family, a collection of intimate photos of her children as they grew up on a rural farm in Lexington, Virginia. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was shocking,\u201d Mann says of the seizure. \u201cIt was really like d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. How can this be happening now? No art has ever been seized like that; this is a first. And that alone is shocking. I haven\u2019t spoken very much about it, but if not now, when? We really need to stand up as artists.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mann says she dislikes the \u201ccontroversial\u201d tag that is often attached to her name and doesn\u2019t want to just be known for the photos of her family. <\/p>\n

Image credits:<\/strong> Header photo licensed via Depositphotos<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While film has experienced a renaissance in recent years \u2014 largely driven by younger photographers who appreciate its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[212991,212992,4021,4020,4501,4022,212993,77,112660,14836,212994,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-710704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-analogtodigital","9":"tag-analogvsdigital","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-cost","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-digitalphotography","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-filmphotography","17":"tag-price","18":"tag-sallymann","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115932836929973092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}