bio:
I have been photographing for 52 years. Always followed my intuition. Major artistic influence: imagist poetry.
Favorite photographer: André Kertész – made me dinner on my birthday and chose my portrait of him for the frontispiece of his final book.
In September and October, my work is included at the Woodmere Museum of Art. Fellowships: MacDowell (next one begins this November); Yaddo; VCCA.
In Smithsonian Museum’s Samuel Wagstaff Collection. Oral History and Catalog of Works at Columbia University.
Group exhibitions: 30-ish since January 2023 across the USA; and Barcelona. Solo traveling exhibition (2005-2021) features 4×6 feet gelatin silver prints: Fort Lauderdale, Boston area, and Columbus OH.
Photojournalist: 25 years. Four years in Cairo (Middle-East photographer for American photo agency), four in Paris (same agency), ten years as staff photographer/photo editor for NY Post. Photo essays: Eritrean People’s Liberation Front; Egyptian DEA; NBA Finals; +++.
Left NY Post in 2008 to irrevocably and irresistibly focus solely on personal work. Archiving all AND creating new work.
Statement:
A quiet, meditative, intuitive photographer, I am drawn to overlooked, often unnoticed, fragile, details contained in the ordinary.
My process, when photographing, is to walk around, slowly, led by my camera lens and instincts. I only photograph when seduced by a scene’s visual aspects and its impact on my gut. Another way to describe my process: “The eye sees what the heart feels.”
Girl at Window, from 1979, is among the treasure trove my archivist and I are finding as he scans the 8×10 inch silver prints from the scores of boxes printed in the 1970’s and 80’s. Although I printed all of them back then, I have not even seen them in the decades since.
Photographs of Space, Silence & Solitud
Adorama Pro: Susan May Tell, Poet with a Camera
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, Opens September 4, 2025, Curator Peter Fetterman: Best of Show, 40th Annual Photo Review
New Series – A TAPESTRY: Lyrical Nature
Available to view among the 30-ish exhibitions since January 2023
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Artist-in-Residence, MacDowell (next Fellowship begins October 27, 2025)
Artist-in-Residence, Yaddo
Artist-in-Residence, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
