With determination she grinds her way to what she wants to see. One of the most cumbersome and slow cameras there is to operate. It is hard to imagine that they were taken with an 8x10 view camera. Strikingly in the moment, vivid and alive with tension and always beautiful. She lives for its opposite, the rush of creating. Mann is open about the crushing self-doubt that many artists deal with. Her discussion of her process, and her inner struggle applied to photography, should be a must-read for any photographer or artist. The work of an extremely well-educated, smart, open-minded woman willing to look straight at life and discuss it openly: good and bad. There is a clear-eyed frankness about Mann’s writing. In fact, the name of the book puts it right out front: hold still, stay in place. The farm is the navel of Mann’s universe. The farm, Virginia, Mann’s mother and beloved father, literature, her dear friend Cy Twombly, her nanny Gee-Gee, photography, her husband and children all swirl about place like a universe swinging around a black hole. The book revolves around the farm Mann and her husband Larry purchased from her parents in the Virginia hills on the Maury River. 'Hold Still' is about photography and about life and family, which is often what photography is about, anyway. There are stories in “Hold Still” that would outdo tabloid journalism and things that would not be out of place in journals of the highest intellectual aspirations. Murder, infidelity, huge personal courage, kindness, tragedy and cleverness all play a big part in the story. Staffer’s invitation led to Mann digging into her family history, opening string-wrapped boxes full of letters and photographs. A bit of a coup for a photographer, really, and it is a measure of Mann’s skills as a writer that she was asked. The impetus for “Hold Still” can be traced to an invitation by Harvard professor John Staffer to deliver a series of three lectures known as the Massey Lectures in the History of American Civilization. Mann is one of the finest art photographers working in America. “Hold Still, A Memoir With Photographs” was a best-seller and a National Book Award finalist. I just really like this book and I savored reading it. Review | I have curiously held off on reviewing this book.

Hold still memoir