English Composition:Black vs. White

My favorite family photo of myself is the one where I’m sitting on the lap of a liquor bottle. It was some kind of promotion the store was having at the time and I really wanted a picture with it and my mom took it. After all, I got my picture taken with "Tony the Tiger" why not the liquor bottle (not that I knew that at the time). People in costumes appeal to children, go figure. This picture says several things that may not be apparent to most people because I know the history behind the picture, let me share. I was young and liked costumed people, my mom carried a camera with her at all times and if I wanted a picture she took it. What makes this picture especially distinctive is the fact that it is a liquor bottle. How many kids have pictures like this in their photo album?

Even though I was very young I remember getting out of the car that day, that is probably because this picture was taken. I sat in the backseat behind my mom and carried my favorite toy with me, a purple hippo pillow that played a song that I can’t recall (the soundtrack of my youth). The day was a typical Chicago spring day, warm and cold at the same time with a low breeze. My mom probably asked me to wear a sweater but I probably replied, "I’m never cold." That day I wore one of my favorite dress/short combo, anything blue was my favorite (along with some ugly clothes, I had no fashion sense). It was made of corduroy, rough on the skin and made that "sound" when you walked, perfect to amuse a young child.

When you compare Sally Mann’s pictures with this one they amazingly share some of the same characteristics that made Sally’s work so controversial. Although I am clothed, smiling and appear very well groomed one might question my mom’s parenting. What kind of mother takes this kind of picture, a liquor bottle, come on? It doesn’t surprise me that when I asked for this picture that my mother told me how everyone in the parking lot gave her glaring looks. What do you think they were thinking? Probably the same things that Sally Mann’s critics said about her work.

Why is everyone so quick to judge? I am sure if you looked hard enough in your family photo album you would find a picture similar to hers, like me, or did you just throw them away saying "that picture is controversial", "that isn’t what childhood is about", or " let’s just forget this instance." What sums that up the best is a line from Janet Malcolm’s essay about Mann, "All happy childhoods are alike: they are the skin that memory has grown over a wound." Who wants to remember the bad things in life when you can elaborate on the good? In reality the bad is what makes the good so memorable.