Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss born in Philadelphia 1970, became a photographer and installation artist at the age of 30. In high school Strauss studied photography and took up a class in Philadelphia community college at the age of 17 and that's all the knowledge she has about photography. Strauss started working as a baby sitter and turned to benefits for 15 years, but being interested in art and especially photography and has now followed through to success. "none of the work I make would be possible without Lynn Bloom" Lyn Bloom is Zoe Strauss's wife who financially and emotionally supports her and rewards her for her own success.

Zoe Strauss's two favourite artists are Liz Bonaventura and Michael. A. Macfeat.

At the age of 30 Zoe Strauss showed enthusiasm in wanting to work with a camera. So her supporting family (wife, mum and siblings) had given 200 bucks in support to buy a camera and that's when her first project begun, she started with a 35mm and then moved to a digital camera. In 2005, 5 years after she started taking photos she received Pew fellowship; "...provides flexible support and encourages creative, interdisciplinary approaches to the preservation of marine systems."

Her first project took place over the span of 10 years and finished in 2010 and had her final exhibition took place on 2nd May, 2010 under the I-95 from 1pm to 4pm. She held an exhibition for this project every May under the I-95 to show how she has progressed and developed in the project. She hangs her work on the concrete pilasters that hold up the interstate highway which "...runs through the heart of Philadelphia", near her house. Strauss does not edition her work like many other photographers do, instead she shares her work with others and at the end of each show she allows viewers to take down the images to take away with them stating very clearly one photo per viewer, she also sells 7 x 9 laser printed copies of the her work for 5 bucks.

While researching I came across an interview in between Will Steacy and Zoe Strauss which I read through. Strauss stated that her work is part of her everyday life which may mean that Strauss carried her camera with her most of the time as she captured strangers. But portraiture is not the only kind of images Strauss would approach to take, she would also approach architectural shots "...recording the human mark of the unseen human hands that created these things..." and text shots which sometimes helps the meaning of the image to become stronger.

Text Image: A memorial to soldiers and next to it a board the says good luck! Yet this board had no connection to the memorial and had been placed there to let people know the time to which the lottery was going to be drawn at.

Architectural Image

Looking at a number of her portraiture work I have noticed that Strauss captures most of her subjects from the knee and above a very few of her pictures include the whole of the subjects. Below are some of her portraiture pictures:

(head to shoulder shot)

(head to waist shot)

(just above the knee)

(head to toe)