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Susan Wides: The Hudson Valley

By Peggy Roalf   Thursday August 18, 2011

Susan Wides has been photographing the Hudson River since the late 1990s: First capturing the estuary’s significance within the New York City archipelago, and later, in the Catskill region of upstate New York. A few years ago, on invitation from the Hudson River Museum, in Yonkers, she began photographing in Westchester County.

In the process she has created a series of images that bridge the extremes of urban and rural, constantly referring to the industrialization of the region. Through her artistic perspective, and the tilting planes of her camera view, our experience of what is actual and what is imagined or remembered, is captured in images that offer a meditation on its history, and our own place in that landscape. An exhibition of more than 40 large-scale images from this body of work, The Hudson Valley from Manhatta to Kaaterskill, remains on view at the Museum through September 11, 2011. Earlier this week, I caught up with Susan for an email Q&A:

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Left to right: Oakland Cemetery, Yonkers (November 29, 2010).Gatehouse, Cropsey Lane (November 7, 2009). Copyright Susan Wides; courtesy Hudson River Museum.

Peggy Roalf: In creating the newer images, in Westchester, how much historical research did you do? Did the collections of the Hudson River Museum influence your choice of sites?

Susan Wides: The Hudson River Museum publications were a major inspiration for my photographs, and key to my research. Westchester: The American Suburb (2005) describes the history of American suburbs, with Westchester as the quintessential example. I’d been working for years on two separate series: photographs of New York City and the Kaaterskill region. But I realized Westchester is the bridge between these two sites. So when I was offered a show at the Hudson River Museum, their collections and scholars were immensely helpful in pulling all that work together into a cohesive body of photographs.

PR: When you began photographing the more suburban settings, how did you balance your view of nature with the rough banality that often lies on the surface? (I’m thinking of Superstore, Kingston).

SW: I felt more like I was picking apart the layers of nature and culture rather than balancing them. They aren’t opposed to each other; they are intertwined. When photographing the superstore in Kingston, it was a gorgeous day, and the autumn leaves looked like flags on a used car lot. Each element influences the others. Shot a different way, the relation between the superstore and its surroundings would have been very different. My view of nature encompasses this mutability.

PR: Apart from the golfers in Dunwoodie, Yonkers, the suburban photographs are devoid of people, yet human activity is really the subject. Could you talk about this a bit?

SW: This emptiness is one of the main characteristics of the suburbs. It’s an indoor existence. The suburban home aims to be a complete world, with everything at your fingertips. This convenience can lead to the disappearance of community. But my photograph of Yonkers Town Square shows that the problem isn’t total. Though the city is quite depressed, the people you see milling about have preserved an urban microcosm, and they still interact.

PR: How do you draw the line between decay as a subject and decay as a romantic construction?

SW: I don’t believe decay is romantic. It’s true that my photographs do not appear photojournalistic, and that without the aesthetic of objective documentation photographs are often seen as abstract, evocative, or romantic. But when I skew the focal plane, I’m not obscuring reality, I’m trying to reflect the reality of my subjective perception. When photographing decay, I hope my subjectivity will provoke the viewer to recognize his or her own responsibility toward the environment of which we are all a part.

PR: Many of the suburban places you’ve photographed are familiar to Metro North commuters, but the views have a sharply skewed perspective. In GM Site, Sleepy Hollow, where did you set up your camera? Were you aware that the rail tracks in the foreground were a deer path?

SW: It’s sometimes necessary to sneak around a bit to find the right shot. In order to get above the GM site to photograph the tracks I had to disassemble my camera and squeeze under a chain link fence. The deer were completely unexpected. It takes effort to be at the right place, but it takes luck to get there at the right time.

PR: Were there any instances where you had decided on a particular site with a clear idea of image in mind and came away with something different and surprising to you?

SW: I’m always looking for something that surprises me. Once I find an interesting subject, such as the Indian Point nuclear power plant, I drive around to see it from all sides. I’m searching for a context that will resonate with the subject. And once I find an interesting location, I play with the swings and tilts of the 4 x 5, experimenting with the image. When I set out to shoot the contaminated Hudson River bank, it was a really dreary day. But in the evening the clouds began to break and a perfect Frederick Church sunset appeared. At first I thought it was too beautiful! But I’d been studying Church and the sunset’s resonance with the paintings of the Hudson River School was very fitting.

PR: I found it interesting that you included more images of recreational activities in NYC (Bryant Park, Central Park) than in the outlying areas. Could you speak to the idea of contrast with that in mind?

SW: City and suburban life form a complementary pair. In the city, the buildings surround parks and pockets of greenery whereas in the suburbs, the houses are enclaves within the natural setting. In each instance the contrast between inside and outside defines the way people interact with the environment. You already pointed out the relative lack of interaction within the suburbs. In the city, you usually see defined recreational activities since the fragments of nature are so defined.

PR: In Kaaterskill Falls, the site memorialized by Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School Painters for its seeming grandeur, you’ve chosen a vertiginous point of view that, oddly, emphasizes the rather small scale of the falls. (In your photograph, when seen from a distance, the falls could be mistaken for water flowing from a garden hose.) What guided you in your choice of viewpoint?

SW: The Hudson River School often depicted the triumph of human industry overcoming savage Nature. Since then that conceit has led to serious damage to the natural environment. I wanted to show the fragility of nature in the present and critique that affected grandeur. The hikers seen next to the falls illustrate the human relation to nature shifting between spectatorship and implication. I had to shoot when the trees were bare and go off the path rather close to the cliff in order to emphasize the circuit between the falls, the hikers and my own position recording both.

PR: You’ve been using focal plane distortions in your work for over 10 years, and I wondered if shooting in rural areas offers different kinds of restrictions—or freedoms—compared to shooting urban settings?

SW: Compared to the somewhat processional arrangement of the city, rural space is more layered, so the plane of focus tends to break apart. In my photo of the car junkyard, Near Catskill Creek, the leaves shatter the space and everything becomes jumbled. The city is constructed to have sharp divisions so it is much more difficult to show the permeability of boundaries.

PR: I get the sense that you do much of your scouting on foot. How do you work out a shooting plan once you’ve decided on a particular site?

SW: When shooting in Westchester there is also a lot of driving. But you’re right, once I’ve found a location I walk a lot to find a good shot. But once that’s settled I have to consider the time of year, the time of day, and the quality of the light. I might return to the same location over and over before I’m happy with the photograph. The plan is never absolute. When shooting the two towers in White Plains, I imagined them from afar, jutting out of the sprawl, but I ended up shooting one close up from the top of the other.

PR: When you shoot with film, in 4 x 5, do you also make Polaroid test shots?

SW: I used to, but not so much anymore. I probably have the same box of Polaroid film in my fridge from 5 years ago. It’s easier to use the ground glass to see the effect of the camera’s swings and tilts, and I have a good sense of exposure settings. So when I click the shutter I know what I’m going to get.

The Hudson Valley from Mannahatta to Kaaterskill continues through September 11, 2011 at the Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, NY. Directions.

Susan Wides’ work has been exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and Europe. The artist’s solo exhibitions include The Center for Creative Photography, AZ; The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz; and Urbi et Orbi Galerie, Paris. Group exhibitions include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The High Museum of Art, and The Municipal Art Society, New York. Work by the artist is held in many public collections, including The International Center of Photography, NY; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; The Art Museum of Princeton University, NJ; La Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, FR; The Center for Creative Photography, AZ; The Norton Museum of Art, FL; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum, NY and the Museum of The City of New York. Her work is included in  New York In Color edited by Bob Shamis (Abrams 2011) and A Photographer's City, edited by Marla Kennedy (Rizzoli 2011).  Her exhibition catalogs, The Hudson Valley, From Mannahatta to Kaaterskill, Art & Entertainment, Fresh Kills, and The Name of the Rose, are available through Kim Foster Gallery, who has represented the artist for over a decade.

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