Susi Eggenberger captures the unguarded moment, the shape of an unnoticed gesture and the expression of words unsaid. An inveterate people watcher, she credits her years as a nurse for her ability to connect with empathy and sensitivity. A documentary photographer for the past 13 years, she shoots to preserve life's fleeting interactions. Ranging from the humorous to the moving, her work can make us laugh as well as prick our social conscience.
Her work as a freelance documentary photographer has allowed her to pursue a wide range of projects, from recording the first interactions and growing friendships between Israeli and Palestinian teenagers at a summer camp in Maine to street photography in Europe and the humor of the American summer beach scene. Her photographs capture the humor and pathos of a moment, sparking individual memories and feelings; in revealing the subjects' humanity, she reveals the viewers' own.
She has exhibited work in the Fraser Gallery in Washington, DC, the Stage Gallery in New York and the Museum for Peace in Ohio. She received two Honorable Mentions for the Pollux Award in the Worldwide Photo Gala, as well as from Women in Photography International, and won "Best in Show" at Studio 2 Gallery in Texas. Her work has been published in The Photo Review, PhotoLife Magazine, Glamour and The Sun, and PDN Magazine selected her as Maine's representative photographer for their "50 photographer/50 States" issue. Her documentary, "Dominique, a multimedia photo essay about a transgender woman living in a small town in southern Maine, was exhibited at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art and was nominated for "Best Documentary Film" in the Maine Short Film Festival.
As an advocate for social change, she sees photography as a catalyst for confronting the truth. In her work with non-profits, such as M.A.P. International in New Orleans and Mano-a-Mano in Bolivia, Susi documents lives that would otherwise go unnoticed by the general American public. Most recently she spent the last three years documenting Noora, an Iraqi girl who was shot in the head by a U.S. sniper in 2006 and whom Susi subsequently brought to the U.S. for life-saving medical care. Once captured, a moment will exist forever," she says, "and as a photographer I have a unique opportunity, and even responsibility, to not only document it but to bring it to a larger audience."
