Susan Fisher — Intuitive Images
by Sally Hansen
The art of photography is the result of a human process of choices. In no particular order, the person on the shooting end of the camera has to decide on a subject, choose the lighting conditions, arrange the composition, pick between black-and-white or colour, go high-tech (e.g., digital SLR) or low-tech (e.g., pinhole or point-and-shoot film camera), frame the composition, consider focus and depth of field, and with high-tech, tinker with a staggering array of technical options. And that’s just the input side of the equation.
Photographer Susan Fisher follows her intuition. She quite carefully avoids over-analysing her shots. Sometimes she picks up one of her two pinhole cameras. Sometimes she uses her digital Nikon D200. Sometimes she uses her $20 plastic Holga film camera. The results are creative, original, free.
Her favourite subject matter is the human face and form. “I love people. Sometimes I see a person and I just walk up to them and say ‘I’d like to photograph you.’ If they look alarmed, I tell them I’m a member of a photography club (she is) and we’re working on a project (they do).” Susan recently participated with two other members of the Photography Matters Camera Club in an exhibition of portraits of people from Lanark County at Lux Photographic Service Inc. on Lake Avenue in Carleton Place.
An Organic Process
For Fisher, it’s all about connection — about tapping into universal life forces to which humans instinctively respond. Once she sees a person who captivates her, she trusts her instincts to lead her to the magical composition that yields an unforgettable image. Her shot of her friend Glen, playing his violin to tombstones in a pioneer cemetery near Ferguson Falls, is a remarkable example of the results she achieves by trusting her intuition.
Technological Innocence
The upside to an aversion to technology is that you build and buy pinhole cameras and achieve amazing effects over which you sometimes have very little control. (The first Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day was held on April 29, 2001.) The process of experimentation yields wonderful surprises, and Fisher has the patience and openness to harvest the rewards of her willingness to forego precision and control.
The downside is that you lose thousands of images that you never backed up when your hard drive is irreparably damaged. Undaunted, Fisher tells me she recovered from her loss within a few minutes, realizing that what was important to her was her ability to continue taking photographs. When I probed deeper, she admitted that there was one portrait of her son and his wife with their two-year-old daughter that she will forever mourn.
A Picture’s Worth…
After moving to Carleton Place in 1974, Fisher was looking for a career. Born and raised near Aylmer, Québec, she enjoyed being a cowgirl in southern Alberta; she hated working as a secretary; and she liked to write. There was an opening at the Carleton Place Canadian, so Fisher gathered up her chutzpah and her camera and landed a job as a news reporter and photographer. A year later she moved to the Almonte Gazette where she spent seven years covering bake sales, murders, Santa Claus parades and Lanark County Council meetings. “It was wonderful working at the papers. I had to take photos under every circumstance.” She remembers slinging her young son, Adam, over her shoulder and racing off to check out fire alarms, sometimes in the middle of the night.
That’s why “In ignorance and optimism, I decided to freelance to give me more time at home with my son.” Her gamble paid off. Fisher has written and photographed articles for The Citizen, for Photo Life magazine, for a wide variety of smaller local newspapers, and is already known to readers of theHumm for her monthly “Dispatch” articles. She loves writing for theHumm because, “Finally, I can write about whatever I want.”
Some of her favourite assignments have been articles on endangered species for Canadian Wildlife Magazine. She has accompanied field biologists on Pelee Island who were studying an endangered snake, and worked with others who were re-introducing flying squirrels. She documented the Swift Fox recovery program in southern Alberta and has written about the vanishing Ord’s Kangaroo Rat of the prairies. “It is such a thrill to work with biologists in the field; I feel so privileged,” she tells me.
Locally, she feels that belonging to the Photography Matters Camera Club has really given her work a big push forward. She loves discussing her creative ideas with a knowledgeable group of people, and the Club provides her with access to “tons of technological advice and help.”
“Picturing Canada”
When I ask her about future projects, she brightens up like a child who has just been handed an ice cream cone. Fisher has always loved looking at old photographs, and about four years ago she wrote an award-winning article for Canadian Geographic about Ontario photographer Carl Linde. Linde documented many of the early events of Kenora, and some of his best studies are housed at the Lake of the Woods Museum in Kenora. Susan has since written a proposal for a book celebrating Canadian photographers who worked in the period of 1860–1960. She is learning how difficult it is to get such a project published, but I’m betting that her unconquerable optimism will prevail.
In the meantime, Susan Fisher is happily focusing on her own photography. As she puts it, “This is how I express my love and gratitude for my life. I have always trusted that somehow the universe would provide, and looking back, it all seems quite miraculous how I was led to photography and writing as a career without any planning on my part.” She would be delighted to share her photographs with you if you give her a call at 257–2164, or send her an email.