Proud Flesh

Larry Mann has Muscular dystrophy. Mann, in her documentary, describes herself as being in a little bit of denial about it, and the book 'Proud Flesh' essentially is her coming to terms with her husband’s disease. The opening image of the book (below) shows only a part of her husband, his torso with the reference name of 'Hephaestus' whom in Greek history was a lame blacksmith. Looking more into it, I personally read it as a man with so much talent despite a disability which in many ways I see it’s the way Mann looks on at her husband.

 The disease tends to eat away at your muscles, in opposites e.g right arm and left leg. This may be looking too much into what may be an accident, but in the photo we see the 'blemish' on the photo transcending from one part of the body to the other. The sad part, for me, is the fact that the distortion gets bigger as it gets closer to his heart, showing a hole, and the left side is significantly darker. This piece is absolutely beautiful, and very strong as a description of what they're going through, as a couple.