Michael James Slattery at work     

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.

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 in our surroundings—here in San Diego 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 Del Mar and shooting my junior high and high school yearbooks after saving enough 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 at San Diego City College in 1989; the years in the darkroom learning The Zone System, color theory to the dodge and burn in the darkroom; a decade and half making a living as a commercial photographer; and finally taking an 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).


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


    Thanks for stopping by.