I am Michael James Slattery. Thank you for visiting my site.

The ultimate goal of my work is to show how the concrete, asphalt, wood, paint, plastic, and glass we use to create our societies are just as important as the trees, mountains, dirt, and seascapes we place them among. If I can adjust just one perspective to see this, I've accomplished my goal.

Regardless of my intentions, many ask, "How do you manufacture these images?" It's based on a tripod, old camera-capturing techniques, traditional darkroom manipulation, a painter's blend of a small palette of colors to create many, remarkable light-capturing technology, and archival printing methods.  The goal being to bring as much light color from as wide a range of measure into an interpretation of what just right, could be.

And I mean manufacture literally. Over 10,000 prints since 2007 — every one made by my own hands, in my own lab, Photo-Synthesis Laboratories.

No print house, no outside framer.

I print each piece with archival methods and build the frame myself.  I stand behind every edition personally.  No one else has touched it.

Every work is a numbered limited edition.  There are 750 limited editions for standard art prints and limited editions of 300 for the cotton canvas prints.  At the bottom of every image's description (on this site) is a database how much of that edition has been produced.

To continue the efforts of verifucation I am now starting to register my editions on-chain through Immutable Editions.  A permanent, public record of exactly what your piece is, what value it holds and where it stands in the run, verifiable by anyone.

 Forever.

Most art asks you to trust a signature.  What I am doing hands you unquestionable verification. 

I teach these crafts too.  My workshops on the face mounting printing and finishing techniques has been popular.

Finally, for the most discerning collectors, I can finish in Tru Vue TruLife® Museum Acrylic — the gallery-grade, anti-reflective, UV-protective acrylic used in museums worldwide.

Just as famous painters and photographers have captured the beauty of dusk and dawn forever, my work combines many techniques to captivate the dynamic range of our mind's eye and celebrate the light illuminating our surroundings.  Here and everywhere I travel.

Press

San Diego writer and radio host Ron James—one of the Ocean Beach "James Gang" printshop legends—wrote an award-winning profile of my work and my Luminism technique.

He traced the whole path: growing up in Point Loma and then Del Mar, being a photographer shooting my junior high and high school yearbooks only after saving enough money for a 35mm camera from getting up at 2 am to deliver milk with Ed Robilard (the milk man) before jr. high school; to studying photography under Santibanez and Spafford at San Diego City College in the very late 80's; the years in the darkroom learning The Zone System, color theory, dodging and burning; a decade and half making a living as a commercial photographer; and finally taking this Luminous Views idea/solution spawned in 1993 to actually creating his first Luminous View in 2003 -- to April of 2007 and finally selling his first work called Luminous Views (first sold print).

• Read my artist statement.
• To get a better grasp of how I create these works watch the videos below

• For a cool video made by pros that make me look significant watch this video below

Thanks for stopping by.