Art Work is essentially a memoir and yet also a primer on how to be an art photographer. That sounds like it could be awfully serious but it isn’t. It is written by a woman who has been an art photographer’s art photographer for a long time now, quietly building great credibility without ever really being a household name. She disarmingly explains her objective at the outset:

“This is a book about how to get shit done. Or, more particularly, how I got it done. Or didn’t. And I guess that’s a big part of an artist’s life — getting other shit done besides the shit you’re supposed to be doing — the art, that is.”

But putting your finger on what Sally got done is not so easy, even after reading the book. Her work is great because it is not for summarizing. It’s the real deal, elusive art of a high order. Sure, she’s old-school in her style but she’s radical and endlessly questing in her subjects. And that content is deceptively simple: watching her children grow up, animals on the farm, photographing a scar on a tree, and so on. Sometimes it has got her into trouble. Even just a picture of the photographic set up becomes charged with something akin to a profound insight.