Susan J. Ross

In the African tradition, a Griot is the oral historian portraying the cultural essence of a community through the Word. As the PhotoGriot, I tell the stories of our community through my eye and the lens of my camera. The daughter of a cultural anthropologist and a social worker, I am an artist & cultural worker using the medium of photography to document the social, political and cultural experiences of our community. Combining a love of photography with my career in city government, I have served as the informal (and sometimes formal) chronicler of Atlanta's political & cultural life over the past 30 years. 

I have exhibited widely individually and as a member of Sistagraphy: the Collective of African-American Women Photographers, which she co-founded in 1993. My work appears in numerous books and publications, including Deborah Willis's Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers to most recently Linda J Holmes' biography of Toni Cade Bambara A Joyous Revolt and the Swann Galleries auction catalog for the Dr. Richard A. Long Collection.

Most of all, I love to capture African-American cultural traditions as you can see in the photographs here. From Jazz - "MIles Runs the VooDoo Down" from the last concert Miles Davis played in Atlanta; to Literature - Dr. Maya Angelou as she addressed an Atlanta celebration of Ambassador and former Mayor Andrew Young, to Dance - "Aloft" from Ronald K. Brown Evidence's tribute to Judith Jamison at the National Black Arts Festival.