Interview & Photography
By Katrina Salamon
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GS&NS: Hi, Katrina! Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Katrina: My name’s Katie Salamon. I’m from a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania, but I go to school and live in Philadelphia. At the moment, I’m studying in Prague. Aside from photography, I study cinematography and write.
GS&NS: How did you get started in photography? What equipment do you use now?
Katrina: I have always been obsessed with movies and the visuals of film, so when I got my first “real” camera at 16 I just jumped into trying to create images like the ones I loved in movies. My goal was always to capture life the way it actually looks; I was obsessed with capturing depth and light the way the human eye does. Having never been taught how to properly use a camera, this was actually incredibly difficult and painstaking. I taught myself what I could, and as I very gradually got better, I began to understand what a powerful tool the camera can be. Now that I have formal education and training, my fascination with image-capturing has only deepened.
The equipment I use is incredibly basic--cannon t3i, with either a 17-50mm F2.8 EX DC (OS) HSM, or a wide angle attachment. I also shoot film; my film camera of choice is the Pentax K-1000, with whichever of my slew of lenses I’m feeling at the time.
GS&NS: What inspires you to pick up your camera?
Katrina: I’m visually inspired by literally almost everything I see. Everything either is or has the potential to be beautiful, in my opinion (and by beautiful, I don’t mean “pretty”).
Life composes light, color, texture, depth, and balance harmoniously around us, everywhere, all the time-- this complexity and nuance is what I mean by “beautiful”. This is what I’m inspired to capture. I see everything, either with my eyes or through a camera, as a conglomeration of these factors. There isn’t a division between the way I see through my camera and the way I see through my eyes. I just love seeing. That’s really all photography is: the art of seeing.
Due to this obsession/fascination, unless I’m in class or grocery shopping, I pretty much always have a camera on me-- it really is like an extension of my arm.
GirlSense and NonSense