Community Magazine August 2016

TAMUZ - AV 5776 AUGUST 2016 61 her, she loves how creative the new technology allows her to get with her pictures. Susan knows photographers who won’t tamper at all with a picture once it’s been taken and she respects that method, too. She spends much of her time gleaning tips and aiming to refine her craft. “I keep trying to improve on it and make it new,” she says. “People say ‘but don’t you know everything?’ You never know everything. You can always be better.” Susan has always been crafty. She’s done everything from jewelry making and weaving to pottery and sculpting. When she took up photography – casually at first, on her honeymoon and later freelancing for friends and family – she didn’t think the pursuit would last. She was waiting for her interest to fade or for the viability to fizzle out, like everything else had. For the longest time, she refrained from branding herself, making business cards or getting her name out. But once people started paying her for her work, she realized she was building something and began studying in earnest. A lifelong student of all forms of knowledge, she began taking classes at Brookdale and the International Center for Photography. Now, she’s sought after for her special touch that has a lot to do with intention, but sometimes can be chalked up to luck. Susan has photographed infants, centenarians, and everyone in between. Even all these years later, she hasn’t lost her passion. She gives thanks to her husband, Ronnie, for his unending support of her aspirations. When asked how much longer she plans to keep going, she says “Forever, or as long as I physically can.” To her, there’s nothing like capturing life’s fleeting moments with the lens of a camera, producing photographs to take out and treasure. We thank her for helping us preserve our memories and for rendering us as we most truly are – whether via the gnarled hands of a grandfather or the effervescent laughter of a child. Susan it’s more about making moments everlasting than it is about glitz and glamour. When asked what her mother, Lottie Chalom, A’’H , thought of her career choice, Susan laughs. “She felt bad you couldn’t eat it! But I used to tell her, my kibbehs are going to be gone soon; my pictures are going to last, hopefully, forever.” Susan aims for timelessness in her portraits and often she achieves it – because she’s not out to take the perfect picture, just an affecting one. “It just has to touch your heart,” she says simply. “If it moves you in any way, good or bad, it’s a good picture.” Perhaps that’s why Susan posts a range of pictures on her website and her Instagram page, from a person belly laughing to a baby hysterically crying – because in both cases the viewer is stirred enough to feel something. Susan’s style is modern and clean. She often prefers black and white photographs to color so that distractible elements fade away and all that’s left is a face or a pair of eyes. She often cites the Ted Grant quote: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls.” The great photographers that she’s studied with – people like Keith Carter, Greg Gorman, Sally Mann, William Hayward, Michael Raab, and Joyce Tenneson – taught her to be more organic and use less props. Often, the subject will speak for itself with an arresting expression or a regal mode of bearing. Susan trusts in what the person is willing to give her, rather than relying on outside forces to do the work for her. If there is one thing Susan believes in, it is hardwork. She cites the author Malcolm Gladwell who, in his book, Outliers, recommends putting in 10,000 diligent hours of time in order to get really good at something. “People say, ‘you’re so talented.’ I work hard!” Nowadays, much of Susan’s work happens after the fact, as she digitally edits her photos. Although “going digital” was somewhat of an adjustment for