PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER | DECEMBER 2019 79
“There were so many amazing people that had come out
of Detroit, and the idea of photographing them tugged at me,”
she remembers. She made a list of people she hoped to photo-
graph: Lee Iacocca, Iggy Pop, Eminem, Lily Tomlin. “I decided
to reach out to five of them and if they said no, I’d drop my
idea. They all said yes.”
Risher applied for but failed to get a grant to finance her
project so she jumped in and began interviewing and pho-
tographing her list of 70-some iconic Detroiters as she had
the time. “This was a grassroots project,” she explains. “I
couldn’t afford a staff so I taught myself how to interview.
I used my travel miles and was smart about cutting costs.”
Three years later she published her first book, “Heart Soul
Detroit: Conversations on the Motor City.”Career-changer
Rave reviews and some exhibits of Risher’s Detroit portraits,
including one at the Detroit Historical Museum, followed the
book’s publication. “The project changed the direction and course
of her career and ultimately her life,” says Ralph Mennemeyer.
“Suddenly she was having Thanksgiving dinner with Lee
Iacocca and hanging with Iggy Pop, Smokey Robinson, and
others. And she was producing work she loved. Again, it was
her persistence that paid off.”
Risher explains, “The work fed my soul. It reminded me why I