'Susan Ressler, A Life in Photography' Retrospective at The Photographer’s Eye

The Photographer’s Eye Gallery in Escondido will present “Susan Ressler: A Life in Photography,” featuring an informal talk by Ressler on Oct. 11 at 4 p.m., followed by a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the show will close on Nov. 1.

Her recently published book, "Susan Ressler Photographs: 50 Years, No End in Sight," earned third place in this year’s International Photography Awards’ competition, in the Professional Book/Monograph category. In addition, Ressler’s photo of an Algonquian family, shot in Quebec, Canada, in 1973, won a prestigious Best of Show in the same competition. Images from Ressler’s new book and the award-winning photographs will be on view at The Photographer’s Eye, a nonprofit, this October.

Ressler lived among the Algonquian shortly after graduating from college. An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker from the University of Montreal arranged for her to stay on a First Nation reserve north of Montreal, where she spent three months documenting their life and ways.

She was “adopted” by three families who spoke a French dialect that Ressler didn’t understand, so they communicated nonverbally. “We became very close and they let me into their lives, and that led to my first body of work,” Ressler says.

Conditions on the reserve were harsh and the people were poor, and her black and white photos do not hesitate to reflect that. “All of my work deals with issues around social justice,” she says. “This is really why I became a photographer. It was that experience.”

Her life among the Algonquian taught her about the imbalance between documentary photographers and their subjects, an imbalance that she has strived never to exploit. She was not yet 25 years old, and the experience had a profound effect on her. She had found her calling, and she never looked back. She was walking in the footsteps of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and W. Eugene Smith, all of whose work influenced hers.

Susan Ressler

After her Canada experience she was admitted to the University of New Mexico Master of Fine Arts program, and began photographing Western themes, like cattle auctions. But one day she walked into a bank and saw it differently from the way she had seen it before.

“I realized I came from an upper middle-class background, and I wanted to flip the script for documentary photography and photograph the wealthy,” she says. “That’s what really propelled my career, was that realization and that change.”

She also felt she needed to go to California, where she became the only woman photographer, out of eight total, participating in the Los Angeles Documentary Project in 1979, which was funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the city’s bicentennial. Her emphasis: Fortune 500 companies, which eventually led to her book, "Executive Order," which features photographs and portraits in L.A. boardrooms and executive offices. These photos, also in black and white, will share a room in The Photographer’s Eye with her photos of the Algonquian. The contrast is stark.

California, particularly Southern California, has remained the relentless target of Ressler’s lens, resulting in her book "Dreaming California," which journals the glorious color and raging excess that epitomizes this part of the country, juxtaposed with the people who strove and often failed to catch the rising wave of wealth. Her retrospective book includes images from all these bodies of work.

Ressler’s work has been shown and collected extensively, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and she is the recipient of many awards, nationally and internationally. She is a professor emerita at Purdue University, and resides in Taos, New Mexico.

Susan Ressler

What: Susan Ressler: A Life in Photography Where: The Photographer’s Eye Gallery, 326 E. Grand Ave., Escondido, 92025

When: Oct. 11 through Nov. 1, with an artist’s talk at 4 p.m. and reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Hours: Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment by contacting donna@thephotographerseyecollective.com, or by calling 760-522-2170

Free: Admission to the gallery is free and donations are welcome; parking is available in front of and behind the gallery.

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