Susan Derges (British, b.1955) is a photographer living and working in Devon. Born in London, Derges studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. A recipient of the Rotary Foundation Award, Derges lived in Japan for six years, and continued her postgraduate studies. After returning to the UK, Derges first began experimenting with abstraction, and then turned to photography. She eventually shifted to camera-less photography—the exposure of images directly onto photographic paper, typically resulting in a negative shadow image—after experiencing dissatisfaction with the way in which the physical camera disconnected the subject from the viewer.

Derges’s 1991 series The Observer and the Observed explored the relationship between object and viewer, and art and science. Propelling a jet of water through the air, Derges used a strobe light to capture the suspended lens-like droplets set against a blurred image of her own face. During the 1990s, Derges became particularly known for her camera-less photographs—or photograms—of water. Using the landscape at night as her makeshift darkroom, Derges submerged large sheets of photographic paper in rivers, using a flashlight and the moon to create exposure. Derges’s images of botanical organisms and flowing water are metaphorically rich, alluding to the connections between ourselves and the natural world. Her 1997 River Taw series exemplified this direct interaction with the landscape. Using the river near her Devon home as a lens, Derges captured fragments of ivy, ice, and debris reflected in or passing through the water.

Derges’s photographs have been shown in solo and group exhibitions around the world; her work is included in public and private collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; and the Hara Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan.