Today we’d like to introduce you to Sammy Saladino.
Hi Sammy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I was born and raised in the Peoria, Illinois area. My childhood wasn’t always the easiest, and I struggled to make friends early on as I was bullied by several kids, which impacted myself esteem. However, art was an outlet for me during those tough times. While in elementary school, art was always one of my favorite classes, and I always took extra pride and care in whatever art project we were working on at the time. Things changed a bit when I transitioned into junior high and high school. My creativity had become misplaced. That is when I really started getting into sports and that had taken up a lot of my focus during that time frame. I participated in baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, and track. However, things changed one evening during the summer going into my junior year of high school. My house had been struck by lightning, and the house caught on fire and burnt down. Luckily, everybody got out alright, but we lost just about everything. I even lost a cat that I recently had gotten for myself in the fire. I lost a big part of me that night.
During that time, music had become a big coping mechanism for me. It was about a month after the house fire I had this weird energy and strange urge come over me and I picked up a guitar for the first time in my life. That was the day that my creative spark came back to me. I found myself playing in a band for a few years after that, going from garage to garage to bar to bar, playing music around the city.
One day in college, towards the end of my band playing days, I had another strange urge to pick up photography after taking a humanities class. Kind of like picking up a guitar, it was something I couldn’t explain. I really felt like photography was calling to me. It was merely a few weeks later I bought my first camera, and the rest is history.
I found out pretty fast that I had the natural ability to frame a shot, but it was up to me to teach myself everything else. There was no better way for me to teach and hone in on my skills than traveling across the country with my camera.
I traveled from cost to cost, seeing and experiencing some of the greatest things that this country has to offer. I took thousands and thousands of pictures while on those adventures, and it really helped shaping me into the photographer that I am today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely was not a smooth road. It doesn’t matter how good you are at something; self-doubt always creeps in. Things like putting down my camera for months at a time due to the self-doubts have been a struggle off and on during my time. Sometime, there was a real struggle pulling myself up, but luckily, I have always surrounded myself around a great support system to help lift me up when I am down.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Over the years, I have seen my photography evolve from one thing to another. I have experimented in all different types of photography, but I have found that my specialty is in both nature and portrait photography. I love going out into nature and shooting something fun, such as sunrises and sunsets. Or finding a unique path with fallen leaves that lead to an old cottage somewhere. Every step in nature is a possibility of finding something really unique to capture. On the other side, I really like working with other artistic people such as models, musicians, actors, or people with really unique personalities and energy to capture portraits of who they are and the world around them. I am really proud of the work that I have done with everybody that I have worked with. In return, it has allowed me to be published in magazines and have had my photos featured in art exhibits. I think the thing that I am the most proud of was having a photo exhibited in a gallery in Chicago. Being somebody that grew up a few hours away from the city and having my work showcase in my home state was such an amazing feeling of accomplishment for me.
What are your plans for the future?
I am really wanting to take my skills overseas. The art scene in Europe is vastly different from what we have here in the states. I am really hoping that over the next five years, I will be able to travel to Europe and experience and capture a different culture.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.photographybysammy.com
- Instagram: Sammyjr_artist
- Facebook: M.facebook.com/photographybysammy
- Linkedin: LinkedIn.com/sammysaladino
- Other: Sammyjr_artist.viewbug.com
