Spirit Chasers
Spirit Chasers is a book of photography by Don Carson with his wife, Susan Murphy, as the co-creating model over a 30+ year period in natural settings. There are 62 plates of photos, both B&W and color, and Susan’s journal entries are included. The period begins in 1992 when, while living in Bolinas, California, Don and Susan began backpacking in the California High Sierras. Don, with almost 15 years of experience as New York City photographer, equipped with his underrated medium format Kodak Graflex XL and four Zeiss lenses, and Susan, equipped with her experience as an aerial dancer and an authentic movement dancer, began to find their photographic interpretation of the spirit as it is embodied in the natural world.
Spirit Chasers is built on the quiet conversation between image and word.
Don and Susan found that the human form can always find a place in the natural surroundings. The relationship is the focus. Sometimes, the human is ephemeral — a blur, a shadow or a reflection — even a reflection of something that is no longer there. Nature can also be the blur, moving through, while the human is still. In other photos an instant is held. Time ceases and Susan merges with the moment’s eternity, where time and timelessness intersect.
A journey exploring presence, place and spirit.
Spirit Chasers is more than a photography book — it is a shared practice of attention. Through Don Carson’s images and Susan Murphy’s journal entries and muses, the work traces a quiet dialogue between the human form and the natural world. Created over decades of walking, listening, and returning to the same questions, these pages hold moments where time softens and presence comes forward. Rather than offering explanations, Spirit Chasers invites the viewer into relationship — with place, with memory, and with what lingers just beyond the visible.