As a former academic, I spent most of my adult life being rewarded for overthinking. Steeped in theory and statistics, my world as a researcher was filled with concepts, hypotheses, qualifiers, and decimal points. I loved it. I still love those things.

But/and . . . photography opens me to a different kind of thinking and experiencing. I love the immediacy of visual impact: sensing line, color, pattern, proportion, and rhythm unfiltered, in an instant, with minimal interpretation. As an antidote to overthinking, I aim to see with a “fresh eye,” in the tradition of Miksang contemplative photography.

Conveying all this to an outside viewer using only two dimensions is another matter. It is here on the technical side (“How can I show what I see?”) that I tap my lifelong appreciation for methodical learning, problem-solving, and precision. Although part of me would love to own 200 tricked-out cameras, I don’t. I try to make the kind of images I want by emphasizing composition, using simple gear.

In my photographs, I hope you'll see my appreciation for patterns and surprises, especially in the forests and rolling hills of southern Illinois. In addition to showcasing tiny things exactly as they are in nature, I also love to bring things into the studio and create still life pieces.

I've been taking pictures for, um, a while now and have been featured in solo and group exhibitions since 2011. And . . . I recently learned that one of my pieces won First Prize in the 2018 Shrode Photography Competition at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts. I'm also a happy member of Oak Street Art.

For more, see interview at https://shannonbarczakbooks.com/2014/12/11/interview-with-a-photographer-introducing-ann-r-fischer/.