'The film now is so expensive. I hate spending that much money on each shot' — photography icon Sally Mann finally switches to a digital camera after decades using film

I'll always remember seeing Sally Mann's photographs for the first time – it was when I studying photography at college some 25 years ago. My first taste was her polarizing Immediate family series – monochrome images mostly of her children, shot using 8 x 10-inch sheet film.

There was a timeless beauty to those photos, which were painstakingly made with a large-format Deardorf 8 x 10 bellows-view camera – if you're interested, she outlines her workflow in this CBS Mornings feature.

It's a film format that she's continued using over the following decades, shooting monochrome-only, until her recent switch to a digital camera, revealed in conversation during her appearance on the BBC Radio 4's long-running Desert Island Discs show in the UK.

"I've started taking pictures with a digital camera", said Mann. "It's so great, I'm just loving it! It's so easy, color is so easy, and so much fun! I'm shooting down in the Mississippi delta where you can't take a bad picture because of the gorgeous lyricism and dream-like quality of the light down there, and I'm doing it in color."

We don't know Mann's specific camera of choice, but when asked about what prompted her to make the switch to color and a digital camera, she was quick to pinpoint the practical implications of shooting with film.

'I'm in the modern world, finally!'

Mann explained, "It's so time-consuming and laborious to work with an 8 x 10 view camera, and the film now is so expensive. I hate spending that much money on each shot.

"And so you're always second-guessing yourself, saying, 'Is that good enough? Is that really worth $12?' But with digital, you just shoot, and if you don't like it, boom, gone, off your computer."

Sally Mann, who was born in Lexington, Virginia, where most of her best-known photos were made, is now 74 and embracing new camera gear with an infectious enthusiasm, even if she has kept a foot in both camps.

"I have this funky old lens and it doesn't handle light well, so there's this little glow to everything. I had the lens before the [digital] camera – it's a 1940's old Leica lens," she explained.

And she added that retirement is not on the cards: "I'm a workhorse. I'm a peasant, I just put on the harness every day."

Mann has an upcoming touring exhibition with the Gagosian gallery network, featuring intimate portraits spanning decades with her husband of 55 years, Larry, who has muscular dystrophy.

"I do hope that the work is viewed in its entirety as a whole," she said. "I don't want to be always known just for the family pictures. There's so much more and more to come."

The full conversation is available at the BBC's Desert Island Discs page for UK viewers.

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