In July of 2020, after having photographed my husband and surroundings daily as a pandemic project, I began making self-portraits. I wanted to see how I appeared in my mildly depressed state. The pandemic and politics were taking their toll on my psyche. In addition to the anxiety around the state of our country and the world, I also had the time to focus on my aging body which was being visibly harmed by too much time spent on the couch in loungewear.
I love making these images, mainly because I work differently in this space than when making portraits of other people. It is a collaborative process when I work with my sitters to create a portrait. We banter as I move them around, speaking while photographing. For the self-portraits, it doesn’t work to simply choose an environment and set up the tripod. I need to think and plan the shoot for a while – sometimes a couple weeks or so, where an idea comes to mind, often from a dream, and I let it percolate. The final step before shooting is planning how best to illustrate the story in my mind.
I continue to make these photographs, at times including family members to explore my loving relationships. Anxiety about aging and isolation remain, albeit with some hope for the future.
Bio:
Susan Rosenberg Jones is a portrait and documentary photographer based in New York City. Her work explores themes of home, family, community, identity, aging, love, and relationships.
She was a Critical Mass Top 50 recipient in 2017 for Second Time Around and in 2021 for Widowed. Her work has been exhibited in solo and juried group exhibitions at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Baxter Street at CCNY, the Griffin Museum, and Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, among others.
Recent book publications include Memory Orchards (Candela Books), Of Covid (+kgp | Monolith), and A Yellow Rose Project: Responses, Reflections, and Reactions to the Nineteenth (Texas A&M University Press).
Her first monograph, Second Time Around (Peanut Press) was published in December 2023.
I have 4 prints on display currently at the Maine Muaeum of Photographic Arts Gallery in Portland, Maine. The exhibit is on view through September 27th. I will be giving an artist talk at the gallery on September 19th.
Here is the info about the exhibit:
https://www.mainemuseumofphotographicarts.org
