Psychologist Carri Lager Uses Photography to Find Peace in a Chaotic World
Written by: John Pacenti
Photography by: Carri Lager
Psychologist Carri Lager spends most of the working week helping her patients navigate an increasingly chaotic world. In her free time, she has found the camera is both a craft and a salve, a way to capture moments of beauty and offer respite to herself and to others.
“That kind of just opened my eyes to the possibilities of capturing all of the beauty that I already was enjoying,”
En route, she has become one of Jupiter’s most reliable professional photographers. Her nature shots have garnered accolades and created a following at coffee shops and other venues where she sells her work. And, of course, Lager’s work can be found right here in the Jupiter Influencer.
“My goal is to help people find a little bit of peace in this crazy world – professionally, and then through my photography too,” she said.
Lager described her art as immersive and restorative as she balances a busy practice and being a wife and mother to a 13-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter.
“I love it,” she said. “I’m just trying to appreciate it when I’m in that experience. I’m not on my phone. I’m connecting at the moment,” she said. “It’s my own kind of therapy for myself. my own kind of disconnect from all of the heavy stuff I encounter on a weekly basis.”
She landed in Jupiter after earning her doctorate at Loyola University Chicago in 2008, establishing her psychological practice.
“I discovered the concept of being a psychologist by reading a book when I was in the fourth grade,” Lager said, describing how an early encounter with Robert Comier’s novel I Am the Cheese set her on a professional path that “absolutely clicked.”
Lager said her interest in photography began in high school, “in the dark room, developing film,” then reignited during a 2010 trip to Europe when she bought her first DSLR camera, where she took 2,000 pictures.
“That kind of just opened my eyes to the possibilities of capturing all of the beauty that I already was enjoying,” she said.
Her upbringing also fed into her passion for nature photography. Her father ran a nursery business, and her family instilled in her a love of the arts. “I’m a total nature hippie,” she said. “I want to be outdoors.”
Technical skill and patience are central to Lager’s process. She said she shoots in manual mode and uses up to 12 different lenses. She favors a wide-angle lens “that allows nature to really pop.”
For moon and sunrise shoots, she said timing is critical and often requires long, early mornings in the elements. She sometimes has to get dirty and endure bug bites to get the shot. “You have to be pretty darn patient, because there are mornings when I go out, and it’s overcast and there’s no pretty colors, but sometimes the dawn is the most beautiful time,” she said.
Portraiture presents its own set of challenges, Lager said, both technical and emotional. Lighting, lens choice, and subject comfort all matter, and editing can be time-consuming. “There are so many elements that go into it,” she said.
Her friend and fellow Jupiter photographer Matt Deluca – they met when neighbors at Egret Landing – said Lager has developed her own, unique style.
“She doesn’t use a lot of heavy filtering, which became popular a number of years ago, or a lot of HDR high-dynamic range,” he said. “She has a good eye for how to set things up, how to frame a picture.”
Lager won first place in two categories and an honorable mention in a third, the first time she entered the Mounts Botanical Garden Photo Contest in 2019, a triumph she said was made more poignant because it occurred while her father was in the hospital. “He was so proud of me,” she said.
The winning image is a perspective shot of a blue window at Mounts Botanical Garden, and another is a bamboo tree backlit by the sun.
She started selling prints at coffee shops and other shops, “so that people can actually physically see what they can bring home.” Then came the publications and individuals hiring her.
Lager also acknowledged the promotional role of social media in amplifying her work. But as a psychologist, she cautions her patients about the use of social media in this day of rage bait and faux outrage.
She tries to use platforms like Instagram to share positive content, pairing images with “inspirational or positive content, like a positive quote, positive message, and some music as well.”
Lager said she already has her plan when she retires. “I’m going to be a pet photographer. That’s what I always said.”
Carri Lager’s work can be found at carrilagerphotography.com and www.instagram.com/carrilagerphotography.
