“Art is our most effective way of overcoming human resistance to truth.”
Anais Nin

        Although I was born in the midwest, I have lived my entire life in California. To live in California means to always be living in the presence of change. California history is a history of change. The Europeans, who came here to expand and explore, encountered a rich land and began the process of change; decimating the native people, the culture and transforming the landscape. This transformation has never stopped. The people, the land, the habitats, have changed and transformed over and over again. To know and live in California you have to be able to accept and understand that change. I do this by focusing on creating beauty as I see it and following the light of change through my camera lens. The beauty of the land and people is still present for me.

“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
Dorothea Lange

        I am interested in photographing California and The West in all of its changing beauty. I am drawn to the challenge of capturing the ‘beautiful impermanence and rustic decay’ symbolized in the Japanese phrase 'wabi-sabi.’ I am interested in photographing the decay of iconographic imagery of my lifetime: pioneer cemeteries, antiquated trucks, drive-ins movie remains, deteriorating barns, movie theater marquees, vanishing telephone booths.

“Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.”
Ansel Adams

        I am inspired by broad expansions of light and color, beauty in nature, and the landscapes that surround me. I am inspired by color and variety of the sunrise.

Does not the very word 'creative' mean to build, to initiate, to give out, to act - rather than to be acted upon, to be subjective? Living photography is positive in its approach, it sings a song of life - not death.
Berenice Abbott

        I have been photographing for over 30 years, some of those years have been more concentrated than others. I started learning in the darkroom with black and white images and focused solely on tonality and controlling light. Now, in the digital age, I find the tools different but my focus remains on tonality and controlling and following the light.

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
Henri Cartier-Bresson

If you are interested in owning giclee prints or cards of these images, please contact me at suzannelorenzphotography@gmail.com for more information.

Thanks for looking,
Suzanne Lorenz