Susan Lapides: Sea Change
In the rural fishing communities of eastern Canada, the daily routine revolves around twenty-six foot tides and the lobster harvests synchronize the annual calendar. The two eleven-week seasons begin with a tradition of extended families gathering on the wharf in the frigid pre-dawn. Excitement, laughter and chatter fill the moments before one last hug and repeated pleas to “be careful.” Finally, a horn announces the 6am rush to drop the traps into the depths.
It was in this setting that I began to photograph a girl and a lobster, echoing the tempo along the shores of the Bay of Fundy. I photographed seventeen local girls annually, assembling a series of two to six portraits of each one. Using the bay at dusk as a common backdrop, each girl chose her own outfit and the way she held her lobster. Some girls were cautious with the crustaceans, while some were proud and still others nonchalant.
The cycles of this ancient tidal landscape in the setting sun offers a contrast to the fleeting stages of girlhood. I hope to reveal something of each girl’s character as she takes stock of a sea creature symbolizing both the familiar and the unfathomable. By creating this ongoing series, I study identity, femininity and how family, local culture and the pervasive influences of society at large manifest themselves in each girl over time.
Eleanor, age 6
Eleanor, age 7
Eleanor, age 8
Eleanor, age 9
Eleanor, age 11
Sina, age 20
Sina, age 21
Maggie, age 15
Maggie, age 16
Maggie, age 17
Maggie, age 18
Maggie, age 19
Bio
Susan Lapides is an American photographic artist who creates time-based projects focusing on adolescence and place. Through her portraits and landscapes, she examines social, cultural and community issues.
Lapides earned her BA in Art History from Tufts University and the Museum of Fine Arts School. She had an extensive career as a professional editorial photographer working for national publications. She photographed President Barack Obama, then the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review and Rose Kennedy on her 91st birthday. The most lifechanging assignment was meeting her future husband photographing for People Magazine.
Lapides exhibits her fine art photography nationally and internationally. Sea Change premiered at Sunbury Shores Art Centre in 2022 and will be exhibited at the Saint John Art Centre in 2025. Solo exhibits of her St. George series were at the Griffin Museum, Sunbury Shores and the Saint John Arts Centre and will be at Beaverbrook Musee de Beaux Arts in 2024.
Lapides is included in the Memory is a Verb Collective which is having four exhibits across the U.S. in 2023. Her awards include 2019 Critical Mass Finalist, and the Beth Block Juried Membership Honoraria from the Houston Center for Photography. Lapides was invited to participate in “Outspoken, Extended,” an invitational exhibit of nine women photographers. In addition, her photographs are often included in juried exhibitions.
Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Fidelity Corporate Art Collection, and Cooke Aquaculture in New Brunswick, Canada as well as in many private collections. She resides in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and St. George in New Brunswick, Canada.