Wendy Fischer Hartman wasn’t born in the city, but she was born for the city. She began taking street photos in Chicago 40 years ago as a college project. She took the long way back to street photography; raising a family, creating art and working as a graphic designer. A chance encounter with a 70-year-old manual film camera “clicked” in more ways than one. It reawakened her love of photography and sparked an idea.
Wendy returned to Chicago full time in 2018 with an idea to chronicle Chicago’s streets; a daily visual diary of 10 photos every day, 365 days a year. So began her daily diary; a kaleidoscope of people in all their love and loneliness, purpose and hopelessness, infancy and old age, set against the architecture and history that is Chicago. Wendy’s everchanging photographic elegy can be seen as an appreciation and deference for two other remarkable aspects of Chicago’s art history. Chicago’s Art Institute, one of the world’s premier museums, has the Thorne Rooms, a set of miniature hand-crafted rooms from different times, that let the viewers drink in the incredible detail of lives past. And then there is Vivian Maier, the Chicago nanny who chronicled decades of Chicago, taking thousands of photographs, walking unremarked and unrewarded, freezing the comedies and tragedies of the city into iconic images. After she retired in 2018, Wendy embraced the city and embraced street photography full time. She photographs people and their lives, now, and for as long as time allows her the privilege. While street photography is a craft, Wendy Fischer Hartman’s Daily Diary, much like the Thorne Rooms and Vivian Maier’s vast catalogue, is a Vision.
Wendy Fischer Hartman’s work has been recognized in 1X.com, who have published over a hundred of her photos. She has received 16 Leica Photo International (LFI) awards. Seven of her photos were chosen by The Leica Meet Selection of Excellence. She has been interviewed and featured in Noir Club of Black and White Photography Magazine and twice in Inspired Eye Magazine. She has been interviewed and/or featured in Facebook pages: Photographie de Rue en Noir et Blanc, Street in BW, Racconti Fotografici, and Leica Meet Belgium. She was 2022 Photographer of the Year in Noir Club of Black and White Photography and The Universe of Colour Photography websites.
Wendy lives in the heart of Chicago with her husband, David and their dogs Maple and Mazie. She has two sons with successful creative careers.