carrie lapidus photography

          My first inspiration as a photographer came from my father--watching him and his approach to documenting our family and the natural world through his landscapes inspired me to first pick up a camera in order to study and create.

          I took that inspiration with me to college, where I studied Photographic Illustration with an emphasis on Fine Art at Rochester Institute of Technology, where I committed most of my efforts on silver gelatin and "historic" processes. While at RIT I drew my inspiration from the masters and professors: Wynn Bullock, Robert Smithson, John

Pfal, Elaine O'Neil, Sally Mann, Willie Osterman, Jerry Uelsman, and to be totally cliche--Ansel Adams.  

          My work in the RIT Archives and Special Collections--and later the International Center of Photography Archives--let me witness some of that inspirational work out from behind the museum glass, and hold it in my gloved hands.  The kind of power that resonates off a masterfully wrought naked silver gelatin print gives me goosebumps just to think about.

          I have witnessed the metamorphosis of the definition of "photographic", from a chemical process to an electronic one; I myself have undergone a metamorphosis from my role of Woman to  that of Mother.  My children are now my daily inspiration in everything I do, including my approach to photography.