suzanne.kohr

How I came To Doing Photography

I have alway had a love affair with nature, and I learned early on to have respect for this world and nature. I suffer from depression and PTSD since I was young. Years ago I had surgery and Gamma Knife Radiation on my brain and I was left handicapped, with Short Term Memory Loss, and a Lag in my thought processing.

We live on a property where they raised horses for over a 100 years. No more horses So when we moved to this property, there were hardly any trees or gardens. Just a few stray Yucca plants. I keep busy when my moods are low, so I started designing gardens and planting gardens all over the place. I have about 15 of them now. I bought more butterfly trees and planted them.

I used to garden with my grandmother and we always had a zinnia and tulips gardens. So I planted one garden each, of them zinnias and tulip. I planted them in her memory. All of the flowers and plants turned into magic, growing large beautifully! Soil rich in horse manurer for all the years they raised horses here. I planted over 600 tulips, 800 lilies; Day, Oriental, and Asian; and other assorted, plants, trees, and bushes. And don't forget the Sunflowers. But the real magic for the butterflies lied in the Zinnias, Sunflowers, and Butterfly trees. To my amazement low and behold, suddenly over a few years, all these butterflies came to live here on our property in the summertime. It was like magic! They were everywhere and they knew who I was and were not afraid of me as I sat and walked around my gardens.

When my grandchildren came to visit they were amazed at all the flowers and butterflies. They would light on their shoulder and hands. I taught them how to handle them. They were thrilled. So I thought I am gonna start taking pictures of the. And I did. I took samples of my work with me and everyone thought they were amazing. I sold a lot of them there while I worked for the Department of Defense. The Commander allowed me to put a permanent display of them at Headquarters. I felt so honored and pleased.

Why photography?

Through photography we can instantly be teleported to another place, time or event. In our photography we can review a special moment in time and see pages of our past, memories of special moments in time, or spend time looking at reminders of lost things of the past, lost youth, love, friends and family members who are no longer with us and find comfort in them!With just one glimpse of a photograph, we can get a resurgence of the sights, smell and feelings, and even the music associated with a special place or time to our past. Through our work, we are reminded of God’s gifts to us, instant reminders of bits and pieces of beautiful people, places, or things, whether it be tumbling waterfalls, majestic mountains, or recapture a memory of the soft sound and scents of the ocean kissing the sand. We can even travel in time and see places that we have never been to but always wanted to go there.

We can be teleported and can see ourselves, others and children when they were small and growing into adults. Children is probably one of my favorite subjects in photography. I enjoy capturing their smiles, laughs, and pure innocence. Remembering their smiling faces, and the sweet sound of their laughter, and their delight in finding something that they have discovered for the first time. Even something as simple as a curly, fuzzy caterpillar. Children love nature and exploring it. They walk through my gardens, admiring the flowers, stopping occasionally to bend over to smell them. Then to their amazement they find, that not only are the flowers beautiful, but their scent is also intoxicating. Their delightful looks as they take on the task of building a grand sand castle on the beach. And then the sad disappointing frowns, when a big wave comes in and washes their hard work away in an instant.

What touches me the most though, is capturing their innocence in life, their wonderful honesty, kindness and simplicity. An honesty, kindness and pure innocence that has not been tainted by life.