Karen Glaser, whose underwater images captured manatees, sharks and extra, dies at 71

When photographer Karen Glaser was a child, her hero was Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer turned actor who performed Tarzan on the silver display.

She swam each likelihood she obtained and was drawn to oceans and lakes her whole life.

Ms. Glaser, a longtime images and darkish room teacher at Columbia College Chicago, was residing in Logan Square when she obtained an underwater digicam in 1983 from her husband as a birthday reward.

She shortly started capturing photographs of youngsters frolicking and swimming at at Northwest Side YMCA and different native swimming pools and water parks.

She discovered to SCUBA dive and traveled to tropical locations the place she photographed sharks, turtles, stingrays and manatees.

Her work has appeared in exhibitions on the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Portland Art Museum, to call a couple of, in addition to galleries round Chicago. Her pictures have additionally appeared in public artwork installations, magazines and in her 2003 e-book “Mysterious Manatees.”

“We used to go photograph sharks in Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands,” mentioned her husband, John Stranick. “She was fearless in the water. I was her dive buddy. I took care of the SCUBA gear, and she had three underwater cameras hanging off her.”

Crystal River, Fla., a well-known location the place manatees wish to swim, was one in all her favourite spots.

“It was her career, and we didn’t make much money, but we wrote things off and were able to get by and travel; she lived her life as an artist,” he mentioned.

Ms. Glaser died Feb. 18 in Florida, the place she’d lived since 2014, from issues from Parkinson’s illness. She was 71.

“She was just full of life and could put any hat on her head, and she looked good in it,” mentioned her husband, including that she cherished classic garments.

Ms. Glaser drove a crimson Pontiac Firebird sports activities automobile and cherished swimming along with her husband and their canine off Promontory Point on the South Side.

“It was like she never grew up, she was always kind of a kid. She sang songs to all our pets in made up words, so when I get sad, I think of that,” he mentioned.

“I remember the day she told me she’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and she said, ‘I’ve decided I’m going to fight this with everything I have. What do you think?’ And I said ‘Of course! That’s exactly what we’re going to do.’ And she did that till the very end,” mentioned her good friend and former Logan Square neighbor Gretchen Henninger.

“She was pretty brave,” mentioned her sister, Ellen DeBenedetti. “We both went to summer camp in Vermont, a Quaker-run wilderness camp that really advocated for women being independent and being out in nature.”

Ms. Glaser was born June 12, 1954, and grew up in Pittsburgh. Her father, Robert Glaser, was a well-known instructional psychologist. Her mom, Sylvia Glaser, was a political activist.

Ms. Glaser, who attended the Kansas City Art Institute and Indiana University, was additionally an adjunct teacher on the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois Chicago.

“She was very exacting and smart, and someone who took her own path,” mentioned Martha Williams, a former scholar and good friend who works as visible director of Atlanta Magazine. “She discovered her passion and found a place where she felt at home, where she could make her mark in her own little world.”

A memorial is scheduled for May 24 at midday at The Historic Thomas Center, Gainesville, Fla.