Suz Lipman – O’Hanlon Online Loft Gallery Show

I am a San Francisco Bay Area photographer and writer who tells stories of our time through photos of people, the built environment, and the way the two intersect. I’m most interested in capturing fleeting social and visual culture, propelled by the notion that “one day, this will be gone”.

The “street” and other public areas are especially dynamic places to shoot. On the best days, one or multiple stories unfold before the camera, in unpredictable and generally life-affirming ways.

I seek to shoot in the tradition of photographers Fred Herzog and Stephen Shore. The people and places of Herzog’s Vancouver, Canada, are preserved in stunning composition and color, while Shore uses humor to elevate environmental artifacts that others might consider mundane.

Other photographic influences, among many, are Walker Evans and Robert Frank. Both traveled around America (as did Shore), to record the vernacular of everyday American people and places. Both documented their times in visually appealing, yet often unflinching ways, in an Expressive, or Lyric, Documentary style.

As a writer, I’ve worked in journalism and poetry. Photography offers an opportunity to combine the two sensibilities in a visual medium.

I record what I see with a blend of humanity and objectivity that aims to be aesthetically pleasing, while capturing the feeling of life’s temporal nature and doing justice to its colorful and messy glory.