Review 53: It Doesn’t Hurt to Laugh by Susan Littlefield

It Doesn’t Hurt to Laugh
by Susan Littlefield
Copyright: © 2008
21 Pages
$18.95 Lulu Studio Photobook

For a camera enthusiast like me, there’s just something about the feel of that magic black box with lense and flash in hand.  In college, I spent my loan refund on a $400 35mm Canon Rebel SG and a love of photography was born.  Last year, I snatched up a digital Canon Powershot on sale at a Circuit City that was going under.  I love it because it still has that big bulky feel of my old 35mm.

Most people these days are all about convenience.  They prefer the palm sized snapshot matchbox cameras with only two or three buttons.  Heck, even cell phones have cameras now.  But not me.  I’ll take my two handed SLR and a tripod anyday!  There’s just something about it.  Susan Littlefield knows what I’m talking about.

Susan was an office manager for her local cable company for 32 years.  Always the first into work each day, she went into the kitchen to make the morning coffee when she slipped on a spill on the floor one day.  She fell forward and hit her head on the sink and was knocked unconscious for six hours.  This resulted in a brain injury causing Susan to have to retire from her job exactly 32 years from her date of hire.  Despite her family taking a financial hit by now having to rely on only the income of her husband, Susan also suffered from speech problems, depression, and memory loss.

Susan’s husband presented her with a DSLR camera one Christmas, but mastering photo taking was not an easy process for her.  Three major issues that Susan still deals with because of the accident are short term memory loss, difficulty multi-tasking, and hardships with trying to learn new things.  Susan would dutifully sit for hours listening to CD’s on camera operation, lighting, settings, focus, etc. only to forget everything when she picked up the camera.  Obviously, Susan becomes frustrated easily but fell in love with the camera despite all the difficulties.  It was the advice of her youngest son which led to a new hobby.  Her son suggested that she photograph the miniature 1/2 inch people from her husband’s model railroad.

She began with sight gags: a man fighting waves in a Cherrio raft or hikers climbing boulders of dog kibble.  Soon, she began adding witty puns to the photographs.  After posting several photographs at www.jpgmagazine.com, someone commented that Susan should put her photographs in a book.  Susan was pointed in the direction of Lulu and her book, It Doesn’t Hurt to Laugh, was born.

The book is a collection of 34 of Susan’s best snapshots. At first glance, you definitely appreciate Susan’s clever photos of “little people” interacting with large everyday objects like spools of thread and fruit, but you might miss the tongue-in-cheek play on words that accompany each photo.  There are often two or three puns in each phrase, some more obvious than others, such as a couple standing between a few giant mushrooms with the caption, “After a hallucinogenic trip through the wood, Psylla sighs, “been fun, Gus.”  My favorite is of a few people seated on top of one of those cans of air used to clean your keyboard, riding “Can A Da Air.”

The sharpness and clarity of each picture is very in-depth.  While Susan calls herself a novice with the camera, it is obvious that she applies great care and attention to detail and lighting when shooting her subject matter.  The railroad people also seem to be naturally reacting to what is taking place in the photo, such as a man hunched over in one photo and pulling a rope attached to a large clam shell.  He has “pulled a muscle.”

Another of my favorites is not even available in the book, but was posted to the JPG Magazine website by Susan on New Years Day.

Jim and Susan spent New Year’s Eve in the darkroom but nothing ever developed.

Another, published to the site late last year, pretty much sums up my thoughts on Susan’s hobby and her book.

Sam strived to take unique and different photographs; this time he was really on a roll.

Susan Littlefield is definitely on a roll!  Despite JPG Magazine falling on hard times and shutting down just 5 days ago, I know there is a photographic outlet somewhere out there just waiting for Susan’s talent.  Whether it be greeting cards or morale boosting posters for office walls, Susan has potential to accomplish great things.  Her Lulu book has barely scratched the surface!

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