I created this business with the Mission to Preserve & Celebrate the Photographers and Photohistory of the Salish Sea and Pacific Northwest Regions of North America. I receive no grant funding and operate as a private stock photography business funding preservation and restoration of historical photographs only by Sales and Licensing of Images in my collection.
By creating “Museums Without Walls,” for the past 40 years I have brought historical photographs into everyday spaces, inviting all community members to connect with their shared past.
This is my way of recognizing the importance of remembering and honoring both the subjects and creators of these images, especially during times when connection and understanding are most needed. This has encouraged engagement across generations and assisted in understanding our region and particularly what we can learn from our ancestors particularly how it affects the quality of all life.
The collection comprises a diverse array of photography-related materials including original negatives and positives on glass and film.
It encompasses the full spectrum of the photographic medium as its technology progressed someone was there to record it relates to the fascinating journey through time captured by the art of photography. If you are looking for a person I have entreated genealogy negatives to the Washington State Archives.
Should you be interested in how I came to this work.... here is a story written about this event
I'll post the second page soon as I locate again...
Susan using Jeffers Field Camera, Gull Harbor, 1984. Photo by Carl Cook.
I came to photography as it was my dad's hobby and escaped its watchful eye by getting behind the lens and I started capturing my own images in 1957 after acquiring my first box camera by sending in cereal box tops. Being a visual learner I found history boring and only came to love it and learn when I looked at the Jeffers Studio Archives. Which I purchased to start a new phase of my craft and save a community legacy. *Links to the films on the Beginning of my Photography Collection and another film made when I closed Shadow Catchers Gallery.
Born and raised in the Southern Puget Sound region by an adventurous motor-head father on a ranch in when we weren't working on the ranch or racing motorized vehicles, we were exploring the Salish Seas and the Olympic Mountains. My soul is tied to deep forests and wild shorelines. Cognizant and sensitive to its history and too rapid changes affecting this region.
After college Business, Humanities and Communications degrees I became a professional photographer and journalist in 1976 creating visual stories on film and in traveling displays for companies and the government. In 1982, while on a Humanities Grant on Women Political Pioneers in our Washington State Government I discovered the chaos of photo studio archives private and public and assisted in founding local and state government photo archives and getting legislative interest backing. After which I formally established The Susan Parish Collection of Photography and purchased The Jeffers Art Studio Collection. And, founded Shadow Catchers in 1989 as the distributor and production arm for my photographic-based products, utilizing images licensed from my collections. Link to View my own Art Here