Featured Artist Mildred Salas

Enjoy the elegant portfolio of photographer Mildred Salas, whose floral images convey deep emotion and healing. Visit her website to view more.

 

 

I am the youngest of two children, born to a merchant marine father and a community activist mother. I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where my family lived in a tenement building.

 

 

I’ve always loved black-and-white films and images. There are moments where color is necessary. I approach my work always asking, “Will this be color or black and white?”

 

 

My journey into photography began when my spouse gave me a Canon AE-1 film camera. My daughters became my first models. But life took an unexpected turn, and I had to set my camera aside. In January 1988, my husband was killed while moonlighting as a yellow cab driver. He was the second cab driver killed that year. We had been married for 10 years and had two daughters—one 7 years old and the other just 14 months old—when he passed away. Life changed drastically for me.

 

 

Several years later I remarried, and that marriage lasted 18 years. He died of a heart attack in May 2009, the same year my youngest daughter was to marry. In 2010, I bought my first digital camera, a Nikon D90, and returned to photography. As I re-entered that world, I taught myself the digital darkroom while learning to live as a widow for the second time. I also took digital photography courses at Pace University and the School of Visual Arts to deepen my understanding of this new medium.

 

 

My primary goal is to evoke emotion in the viewer. I want my images to offer a sense of peace, quiet, serenity, and openness through the negative space that appears in many of them.

 

 

Space is deeply important to me. When I capture images, I naturally gravitate toward negative space.

 

 

Among the artists who inspire me are Ansel Adams and Drew Doggett. Both create images with the open, airy sense of space that draws me in.

 

 

My images, The Holy Grail and Born of Pain, carry deep meaning for me. I captured these during an especially difficult and painful time in my life, when I felt displaced emotionally, psychologically, and physically. I lost much, but the survivor in me did not give up. To me, the images reflect the release of grief and the beginning of new life.

 

 

From ashes, beauty rises. We move through the fires of life and emerge stronger, with a deeper understanding of ourselves and of life.

 

Mildred Salas invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook. 

 

 

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