82 SIDELINES OCTOBER 2014
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
e
Jazz Crying in the Rain
Susan K. Friedland:
Horses Are Her Muse
By Lauren R. Giannini
S
usan K. Friedland is an award-winning fine art photographer whose
eclectic subjects include Americana, wildlife, abstract, landscape,
nautical and horses.
Her photos are in Ralph Lauren’s collection, Steven Spielberg has some of
Susan’s equine photos, and Elton John owns a Friedland-created shadowbox.
It isn’t only celebrities who love Susan’s work. From January through April
2014, a special exhibit at the Booth Western Art Museum (in association
with the Smithsonian Institute) in Cartersville, Georgia, honored Susan’s
fine art photography. Her work has been featured in exhibitions, museums
and publications, including
Cowboys & Indians
magazine and two shows at
Neiman Marcus in Atlanta.
“It isn’t the equipment you use, it’s the artist’s eye behind the camera —
that’s where the creativity is,” said Susan, who snapped her first photo in
1979, then took graduate courses at the University of Georgia and at the
Massachusetts and Atlanta Colleges of Art. For 10 years, in Augusta, Atlanta
and Boston, she taught photography, including film developing and printing.
She does not digitally enhance or apply special effects to her work. “I try to
let my eye be my editor.”
Susan discovered her passion for equines as a toddler when her father put
her on a pony. She grew up in Savannah, Georgia, took riding lessons for a
couple of years and competed in some barn shows. She rode for pleasure.
On her honeymoon 35 years ago, she was thrown from a horse and suffered
Susan and Lyric
