Biography: Zoe Strauss

Zoe Strauss (born 1970) is an American photographer working mainly in the streets of Philadelphia. She is a photo-based installation artist. She started taking pictures when she got camera as a present for her 30th birthday.
Strauss is still very deeply connected to her roots and her neighbourhood where she shoots most often. Her images reflects everyday life in South Philadelphia with all its shuttered buildings, sad beauty of everyday life.
Zoe's work is quite voyeuristic and might put the viewer into uncomfortable position. It is very intimate, sometimes shocking. As Zoe said "I approach someone with the intent of making a photograph and what attracts me to the person is intangible, although later on in the edits it seems as if the portraits that have the greatest importance to me, and have the greatest satisfaction, are the ones where I have had some sort of connection with the person, and that almost always involves a connection that can not be articulated — a sense of pride and joy of being in the world.".
One can find difficult to connect to those images, especially if never been to such surroundings and atmosphere, even though, it's difficult to stay indifferent to Zoe's work, which proves it to be very strong.


http://www.zoestrauss.com/zoe.html
http://blog.metrogallery.com.au/?p=282449055