Childish Lament

"Stories happen only to people who can tell them" (source).

That's a quote from a review of Sally Mann's new memoir. The reviewer gushes over the writing. He is either her boyfriend or the book is really good. I will have to read it, of course. I have not cared for her post-childhood photography, and I wonder why it had to end as they grew. My fervent hope is that it didn't and that there are familial pictures just waiting to be shown. Perhaps I lament the fact that I have no family of my own to "exploit." I helped raise a young boy once, and he was relentlessly photographed. I wish someone would let me use their family now to make picture stories of. C'est la vie, though. If you want something, you must pay for it.

Here are a couple links (link) (link) to the work of a fellow whose subject matter is his family.  His work is good, I think, though he is careful not to get caught up in "controversy."  It is the new moralism, perhaps.  Here is another photographer, too, who does very beautiful images of her own family and others (link).  Again. . . I am envious.  

Slava Pirsky wrote to tell me he mailed my print yesterday.  It is coming from Israel, so it may take awhile.  I have a tracking number and check it too often.  Mail does not move that quickly.  He has not photographed his daughter for a while now, years, I think, or at least he has not shown any photos of her that I know of.  It is a strange phenomenon that I will never know or understand, I guess, how that "artistic" bond comes unglued.  As with most things, I guess, first slowly then suddenly.  

I will get the book which is not about her children so much as her family history.  Apparently it is a Southern Gothic tale worth reading.  Redneck Bohemia.  I'll pay my money and take the ride.  We'll see.