This month I attended a great grassroots photography festival called “Look3.”  I drove two hours down to Charlottesville, Virginia from D.C. I really had no idea what I was in for. The festival used to be a low-key backyard barbecue organized each summer by a National Geographic staffer to hang out and look at slides of great photos. It outgrew his backyard and this was its public debut.

For all its so-called quaintness, (Charlottesville is a one-horse town) it had tons of attendees that paid up to 100 big ones for an all-access pass for the three-day festival. I went up for one day and had a blast.

From the edgy short films taken by pro shooters themselves, to nightly “Actor’s Studio” type interviews with photographers, the energy there was palpable; and even a Friday evening thunderstorm didn’t slow down the crowds. Attendees, namely photographers, simply grabbed their cameras and began to shoot people running in the rain ( and in the dark).

There were three headliners for this year’s festivities: Photographers William Albert Allard, Sally Mann and Eugene Richards. All fabulous, the live events centered around them. But, I discovered Sally Mann on this trip.

Mann is a local girl, born, raised and living in nearby Lexington, Virginia. This was particularly fitting, since most of her work is rooted in the area as well. Virginia is exemplified by her photographs that comprised her books, Immediate Family, What Remains and Deep South. Her work was shown Friday evening on the historical Paramount theater’s film screen. A shy Mann spoke about each image, one by one, with interviewer Alex Chadwick of NPR sitting by her side.

Fearless. Raw. Politically-incorrect. Explorative. Her collections through the years seem to mirror her stages of discovery in life. Like any true artist, her medium is her release. She takes time to experiment with the most antiquated technology possible. To go on research trips. To be uncomfortable. To be comfortable. To journey through her lens and hope to come out the other side a better creative.

Near the evening’s close, Mann said that she doesn’t consider herself spiritual. Not in the religious sense per say, but the hopeful, karmic sense of the word. This confused me. The work I saw seemed to be rooted in magic ; taken by someone open to receiving small miracles daily.

Yet, when she talked of waking up on her farm on a pristine, summer morning and seeing that first picture–Mann spoke of the inspiration taking hold of every cell of her body. Inspiration is spiritual, no? It’s like a religion.  And she does breathes it.

Whether nudes of her children playing in a time of innocence or stages of human decay at the Body Farm, maybe Mann hasn’t yet realized that her image explorations help us to grow, us expand. That is a very spiritual thing to accomplish.

Lately, her bravery has led her to capture her own husband as he changes form right before her eyes, experiencing a debilitating illness. She marinates in the beauty of living, dying and death. It’s because of discovering Sally Mann at Look3 that I’m not as afraid of death or dying than I was. Through her eyes I now realize how natural and beautiful it is. Not being afraid of dying translates into not being afraid of living. You just can’t give people a gift like that unless you’ve received one. Because of this, I believe Mann is one of the most spiritually aware photographers of our time. This is my ode to her. Thanks Sally.

In her words: “…I am not afraid to use lyricism, romance and intimacy which, like venom to the snake-handlers, offer terrible risk but also a ticket to transcendence.”

And if her aren’t aquainted with her images yet, visit http://www.kochgallery.com/artists/contemporary/Mann/index.html

First, I want to apologize for the brief absence from updating the blog. We were in the process of improving many things on imaginginfo. But we’re back baby!

No need to fret over no more Sopranos! Now, you have the Eye Openers blog  at least once a week and we promise no ambiguous endings like last night’s Sopranos finale. Okay, did Tony die or what? I’ll tell you one thing. Anyone who loves photography would have noticed some of the gorgeous shots in last night’s episode, that would have lent themselves to beautiful stills. Like the shot at the meal after Tony’s brother-in-law’s funeral. Carmella sitting elegantly ladylike with a wall-size painting behind here. Tony standing up next to her. The lighting was low, shadows were sublime and I wish they would sell that shot as a photograph. And, the last scene, an amalgamation of goings on in a diner-like depot as Tony waits for his family to arrive for dinner. Each one arrively separately, exchanging pleasantries, warm gestures and popping onion rings into their mouths, and then cutting to other patrons: some kissing, others chatting, others looking suspicious. It reminded me of what Richard Russo’s diner from his Pulitzer Prize-winning book might have looked like in stills.

Some things are just better as photographs.