About Deborah Sussex
Photographic Artist
Born in Watford City, North Dakota, my proud family roots go deep into the prairie soil that I love. Although I now live in Minnesota, I still think of myself as a 4th generation North Dakotan. As a young child I spent many summer visits at my grandparent’s farmsteads which have been in the family for several generations (yes, that is me in the photo to the left playing dress up…as a kid I never liked wearing shoes).
I love the big sky, wide open, wind in your face, raw landscape feel of the prairie. You’ve never seen a sunset until you’ve seen it on the prairie. It’s an understated landscape that intrigues me. It’s so simple, it’s powerful.
For the past nineteen years, I have made my home in rural Ely, Minnesota, a unique area, where I find endless visual inspiration from the stunning northwoods environment in all times of year. Ely, MN is also the central gateway to the beautiful Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
My passion for photography began over twenty-five years ago when I purchased my first camera with a high school art scholarship. Whether photographing nature or people, I work towards finding and capturing mood-evoking, real-life moments, using striking light and attention to detail.
I spent about fifteen years in a content, mobile lifestyle, primarily working as an outdoor educator for the National Outdoor Leadership School, traveling domestically and abroad. In due time, I earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN.
After living and working in the outdoors for so many years, I wanted to create a new balance when I turned my full time focus to photography in 1998. It was time to find outdoor sports that held just as much passion as photography.
Hands-down my favorite sport is Nordic Skiing. It’s an invigorating way to explore the outdoors in winter and this sport has made winter my favorite season of the year. This love blossomed and helped me to become a competitive Nordic Ski racer. Ski racing helps me focus on goals and create benchmarks for myself. I love the kind of people I meet and I find it to be a really healthy and supportive atmosphere for a demanding sport. Skiing is really the gift I give myself to balance my photography work.
Any serious athlete trains year round, and cycling has become my warm weather activity, both road biking and mountain biking. In the last few years, I’ve really enjoyed mountain biking because it gets me into the back country that I love.
I travel whenever I can to enjoy the cultures, beauty and new experiences. It is a great life - diverse and never dull, inspired by my grandmother, a school teacher who saved and saved so she could travel and see other cultures. Over the course of my life, this wanderlust has taken me to developing countries like Mexico and Nepal as part of my undergraduate studies in anthropology; to Patagonia in Chile, Baja California in Mexico, and the Canadian Arctic on expeditions during my outdoor education career; in the last few years to Italy, Spain, Norway, and most recently to London, Paris and Amsterdam.
In early 2007, I opened my Gallery & Portrait Studio in Ely where I do my own printing and framing for my black & white and color work. In addition to selling my fine art images in my gallery, I have lovely displays of portrait and wedding work, a projection room for clients to view their images, and a 550 square foot portrait studio.
I continue to be a “self-taught” photographer. That is to say, I am always experimenting with subject matter, cameras, film & digital formats, printing methods, and photography for my personal projects/interests and photography for commissioned work.
Member of: Professional Photographers of America and Wedding and Portrait Photographers International
To any photography job, I bring a commitment to providing images with an artistic quality that emphasizes the underlying character and essence of people and places. I enjoy offering you the combination of my refined artistic sense, my personable demeanor, and the competence to handle complex projects.
Thank you for viewing my work. I look forward to hearing from you.
Visit my Studio and Gallery at 1245 East Sheridan Street in Ely, MN Google Map
Call 218-365-3077 or Send an email