ABOUT
Artist Bio
Susan Loesch is a photographer and writer whose work reveals the hidden dimensions of California's wine country. Through patient observation and a contemplative approach, she captures moments of extraordinary beauty in seemingly ordinary landscapes—the geometry of dormant vines against winter skies, the golden light of late afternoon across Sonoma hills, the textural dialogue between ancient oaks and young grape clusters.
Her photographic style emerged from a profound personal transformation that fundamentally altered how she perceives the world around her. What began as aesthetic appreciation developed into a deeper relationship with landscape, teaching her to move beyond mere observation into true witnessing. Susan's images invite viewers to slow down and discover layers of meaning and beauty that reveal themselves only through sustained attention.
Her photography has been exhibited throughout Northern California's wine country, and she occasionally leads workshops helping others develop a more contemplative approach to seeing and capturing the world. Susan's work is distinguished by its attention to sensory detail—not just how wine country looks, but how it feels, sounds, and changes through seasons and weather.
Susan lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she continues to document the dance between light, landscape, and time that makes California's wine country one of the world's most beloved destinations.
She is currently writing her first book, "One Thousand Small Awakenings - Finding Light in the Wine Country"
Artist Statement:
The Art of Seeing
Between looking and seeing lies a world of difference—a space where time slows, attention deepens, and ordinary moments reveal their extraordinary nature. My photography explores this threshold, inviting viewers to cross from casual observation into true witnessing.
For years, I practiced looking—efficiently framing scenes, capturing what presented itself, collecting images like souvenirs. But a profound life transformation taught me the difference between gathering information and receiving understanding. This requires a particular kind of attention: patience, receptivity, awake to subtlety. But most importantly, it requires curiosity. It means returning to the same locations in different seasons, different weather, different light—understanding that no place ever remains static, no moment ever repeats.​
Through my lens, I seek to capture not just how wine country looks, but how it feels to be fully present within it—the particular quality of silence before dawn, the scent of earth after rain, the textural conversation between grape skin and vine bark. My images invite viewers to slow down, to notice the way light transforms everything it touches, to recognize the stories hidden in plain sight.
In a world that increasingly values speed and volume, my work acknowledges slowness and depth. Each image represents not just a fraction of a second when the shutter released, but the accumulated time spent watching, waiting, and ultimately seeing what might otherwise pass unnoticed—those one thousand small awakenings that transform ordinary landscapes into revelations.