My work tends to be conceptual and often deals with two realities religion, a reality that some of us share and our sexuality a physical force that we all share and defines our purpose.
I began my photography experience with the gifting of my first 35mm film camera, a Pentax-K 1000. This gift came at an opportune time as I was searching for means of artistic expression, having tried painting and drawing but quickly realized that I did not have the patients needed. So the camera seemed like a perfect fit, instant gratification if you could ignore the week to ten days wait to have your film sent out to be developed and printed or in the case of sides developed. My first subject matter was like most what was familiar to me, at the time I was into hiking so it was nature. I had an almost instant infinity for the camera, anxious to reveal its artistic images.
As I became proficient with the use of the camera. I began photographing small events for monetary consideration. Then in 1972 do to a tropical storm name Agnes, my town was flooded and just by circumstance I found my self photographing the disaster as a freelance photographer for the local newspaper. This quickly increased my learning curve of photography’s technical aspects, as I had to develop and print my own work. I stayed at the newspaper for five years and in the int re-trim established my own commercial business. While photography became my career. I did not lose sight of what brought me to photography the art. However do to my varied experience with photography. I came to the realization that photography was fundamentally a Narrative discipline, separate form the traditional arts in how the image was realized. In photography the image was recorded and not created, I practically had no physical impact on the waterfalls, sunsets and landscapes I photographed. This to me was not art in its traditional role. Where the practitioner plays a direct role in the physical application of materials in the creation of a new reality. While photography in its most widely accepted capacity is a Narrative recording of an existing time and place. It is this dependency on a camera to record an existing reality, that establishes photography as a unique and independent discipline not reliant on art, for its prestige. But capable of receiving its own accolade. So for me the challenge was how do I transition my photographs from the Narrative aspects of photography to represent a more artistic version of itself.
I began my search in the darkroom trying different techniques with which I had some success, but my efforts were only altering the appearance of the image. I felt I needed to do more. My epiphany came as I was sitting at a red light. When I happened to glance over at what appeared to be an abandoned ware house. W hoes elongated windows on the top floor interested me. So when the light turned green I sought the owner. To my good fortune he turned out to be a very nice gentleman. Who showed me the windows, from whose light inspired me. I asked I could photograph here, he agreed after some hesitation, thinking me a little wired. So began my new direction. Since the space was empty I controlled the Narrative, having to lug in what ever I was going to be photographed. Equipment wise I went from a 35mm camera to the purchase of a Cambo-Super wide 4X5 camera with a 65 mm lens ( My film choice was T-Max asa 400 black and white ) . To photographing my first nude models, collecting props and constructing limited sets. This new inspiration also spilled over into the darkroom. Where the larger format film size allow me to transfer visual material from one negative to another by contact printing using Black and White duplicating film. As film began to become less available I had to switch from duplicating film to X-Ray film that I exposed using a florescent light hung from the enlarger using budgie cords. I continued to use this process until around 2006. When the commercial pressures to switch to digital were to great to any longer continue. So I made the transformation with some apprehension, but was able to quickly adapt, finding I could do more with digital then with film. For post-production I use a combination of PicMonkey and ACDsee. I primarily process only J pegs. My images are printed on heavy weight art paper using pigmented archival inks size vary but a typical print would be 23 inches image size longest dimension allowing the smaller dimension to determine itself. An additional 3inch boarders are then included in the print .
Curtis Salonick 