Susan Bowen: Break Away From Technology

Susan Bowen is a fine-art photographer based in New York. For many years she exclusively shot overlapping multiple exposures (long panoramic-like images) using a "toy" camera. The Holga is a plastic film camera with zero controls.  It requires embracing the limitations of having only one f-stop, one shutter speed with which to work.  Her images are created in-camera, each image comprising about half of a roll of medium-format film.

Susan will present her work, giving you a number of examples of this technique.  She will give a brief history of the Holga, and tell you various tips and tricks to working with this type of camera.  She will discuss how she scans her negatives, and from that point on works digitally.  A lot of work goes into these images post-production; Susan will talk about the entire process, from shooting to printing.

Speaker Bio:

Susan Bowen lives in New York City and has been traditionally known for her overlapping multiple exposure panoramas, which she shoots with a plastic camera. In 2008, Susan completed a 48’ public art mural for a school in New Haven, Connecticut, and the  previous years she created four murals for the Department of Transportation in Minnesota. She has been profiled in Photo Techniques and Light Leaks magazines, published in Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age, and received an award in the Pilsner Urquell International Lucie Awards. She has also had four images published in Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity, a book by Michelle Bates. Her twenty one solo shows have been in New York, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Reno, Dayton, San Marino, Lubbock, Georgia and Tennessee. Susan’s current projects include a series of digital images exploring the topics of people walking and various pictures of the ground.

Her work can be seen at www.susanbowenphoto.com, on Instagram as @susanbowenfoto, and on Vero as @susanbowenphoto