The David La Chapelle and Garret Suhrie Mentorship Project

This May­bach Foun­da­tion Arts Men­tor­ship project paired a young aspir­ing artist with an arts con­nois­seur. In his mis­sion to moti­vate soci­ety to appre­ci­ate and pre­serve nature to sur­vive urban chaos, Gar­ret Suhrie got an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be men­tored by an exem­plary pho­tog­ra­ph­er, David LaChapelle. Through his art, Gar­ret Suhrie want­ed to chal­lenge the way the nat­ur­al world was viewed. 

Gar­ret has an unusu­al per­spec­tive on the urban world that he shares through his pho­tog­ra­phy. Liv­ing in Los Ange­les, he saw an urban world that is loud, over­crowd­ed and tech­ni­cal. Nature is a lux­u­ry to him. Gar­ret sees lux­u­ry in nature that is unadul­ter­at­ed, untouched or sim­ply still. Through the pow­er of pho­to­graph­ic sto­ry­telling, Gar­ret and the Foun­da­tion are try­ing to moti­vate the soci­ety to appre­ci­ate and pre­serve nature to sur­vive urban chaos.   

To suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cute this project, the May­bach Foun­da­tion assist­ed in: 

• Exhi­bi­tion plan­ning and exe­cu­tion 
• Orga­niz­ing network­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties with accom­plished pho­tog­ra­phers 

• Arrang­ing crit­i­cal reviews by arts con­nois­seurs  
• Orga­niz­ing commu­ni­ty ser­vice activ­i­ties 
• Coach­ing pro­tégés in devel­oping clear objec­tives and achiev­ing indi­vid­ual goals 

Dur­ing the men­tor­ship and beyond, Gar­ret invest­ed him­self in visu­al­ly cap­tur­ing the decay­ing indus­tri­al facil­i­ties in his home city of Har­ris­burg, Penn­syl­va­nia. He jux­ta­posed the pho­tographs of such sights with those of the nat­ur­al world. He says, “Although the nat­ur­al world has been well doc­u­ment­ed by gen­er­a­tions of pho­tog­ra­phers, there still are amaz­ing orig­i­nal sights hid­den and wait­ing to be cap­tured. The key to find­ing them is to have the patience to keep look­ing.” 

On the oth­er hand, his men­tor, star pho­tog­ra­ph­er David LaChapelle, him­self ben­e­fit­ed from men­tor­ship. David says, “One of the most impor­tant things I can do in my career is to share my expe­ri­ence with aspir­ing artists. I have had the hon­or to work with and learn from some of the most impor­tant artists of our time. I feel that the time my mentees spend with me would be wast­ed if I didn’t share what I learned from my men­tors. The May­bach men­tor­ship pro­gram has pro­vid­ed me with an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to share that knowl­edge with a young artist whose tal­ent I believe in.” 

The May­bach Foun­da­tion invit­ed Gar­ret Suhrie to an all-expens­es-paid vis­it to St. Moritz, Switzer­land to help him expand his port­fo­lio. His men­tor­ship pro­gram cul­mi­nat­ed with an exhi­bi­tion of his work at the May­bach Cen­ter of Excel­lence in Stuttgart, Ger­many in Sep­tem­ber 2011, where he gift­ed two pho­tographs from his per­son­al col­lec­tion to the Daim­ler Art Col­lec­tion. 

Gar­ret has received numer­ous acco­lades from both the art elites and art enthu­si­asts. Addi­tion­al­ly, his work and his tal­ent have been rec­og­nized in the fol­low­ing ways:   

• Nation­al Geo­graph­ic chose one of Gar­ret Suhrie’s pho­tographs as the “Pho­to of the Day”  
• Gar­ret exhib­it­ed his work at the Los Ange­les Art Week  
• Gar­ret was also invit­ed to exhib­it some of his “Nature as Lux­u­ry” themed pho­tog­ra­phy at the Los Ange­les Ritz Car­leton Res­i­dences in con­nec­tion with the Los Ange­les Art Week. All the pho­tographs exhib­it­ed were pur­chased. 

• Gar­ret was Hon­ored with an Invi­ta­tion to the Annen­berg Cen­ter in Los Ange­les. 

By lever­ag­ing the May­bach Foun­da­tion’s net­work, Gar­ret Suhrie was invit­ed to meet Christi­na Mit­ter­meier, Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al League of Con­ser­va­tion Pho­tog­ra­phers at the Annen­berg Space for Pho­tog­ra­phy in Los Ange­les. The invi­ta­tion to the event was extend­ed by a high-pro­file poten­tial sup­port­er who is inter­est­ed both in arts and con­ser­va­tion.