Featured Professional Member Gallery
Archive 12 - October-December 2002
SHARON
SELIGMAN 
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All images © SHARON SELIGMAN
Sharon Seligman is a documentary photographer. Much of her work includes environmental portraiture. She also uses a documentary technique as a child photographer. Sharon is interested in learning more about stock photography.
Most recently, Sharon has been documenting an indigenous group of people in the Bajio region of central Mexico. These people have lived in this area for more than seventy years. They capture wild birds and other animals in the desert and sell them along the highway. Sharon was struck by the image of stand after stand of caged birds and poles with rattlesnake skins suspended from them. She began making the images because she was distressed by the plight of the animals. Over a period of three years, Sharon has developed a relationship with the people. She now believes that there is a certain sad poetry in the similarity of the people and the animals. Both sides are captives of poverty. Sharon has named this project Bird People.
Sharon has completed a body of images called Bearing Witness, Beyond the Surface of Breast Cancer. This work explores the feelings, experiences and transitions that often result from an encounter with a serious illness, such as breast cancer. Images and text, based on Sharon’s own experience with breast cancer and interviews with other women make up the body of the project. It is currently on exhibit at Benham Gallery, Seattle, WA. Previously, the project was exhibited at Houston Center for Photography, Houston. Bearing Witness has received a sponsorship by Blue Earth Alliance, and grants from Texas Photographic Society and Puffin Foundation. Sharon hopes to continue to exhibit the work and to publish a book of the images and text.
Images from Bird People were exhibited in June, 02, at Houston Center for Photography, a member’s exhibit, juried by Anne Tucker. In May, the images were exhibited at Galeria de Arte, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The complete body of work is scheduled for exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, OR, in April, 03. Bird People is currently exhibited online on the Photoeye Photographer’s Showcase.
“The essence of the moment or the story always drives my photography. I love using imagery to be a storyteller. I am still fascinated that the exact moment when I clicked the shutter stays with me always. That phenomenon causes me to believe that I am doing exactly what I am meant to do.”•