also demonstrate the sources of Mann's aesthetic. In Immediate family the photographer includes a number of photographs of her father's mildly Surrealist, often found-object sculptures that demonstrate a remarkably free approach to art for the time and place. A life-long friend, the novelist Reynolds Price, noted that it was Mann's upbringing by such "loving, freehanded and independently imaginative parents" that was the basis of Mann's approach to her art (1992, n. p.).
Mann's father was a country doctor who was interested in photography (along with fast cars, sculpture, and social causes) and had his own darkroom. He worked with a variety of cameras and processes and Mann's career has adequately demonstrated how "early exposure to this odd picture-making apparatus" aided in her growth as "a genuine camera artist" (Livingston, 1983, p. ix).
Despite this early interest in photography Mann never undertook the formal study of the art. She maintains that "technically oriented people are really horrified by the way [she] works with a view camera"
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