SPLB (Seattle-Paris-London and Back) is a collection of photographs taken by Sal Celis during a recent urban tour of two of the most vibrant cities in the world, Paris and London. Celis presents over 30 large, modern metallic black and white prints that celebrate extraordinary yet real moments in the city, emphasized by Celis’s keen compositional eye, attention to detail and artistic intuition.
Celis’s Facebook friends challenged him to seek out certain subjects as though he was on a photo treasure hunt and he returned with a memorable, universal, and inspiring portfolio much like a contemporary version of the late Vivian Maier’s street photography of the 1960’s.
Images include a young woman dressed in a fur coat and fur gloves holding her camera phone to take a picture, which is also encased in a faux fur accessory. Eight men are seen during a casual game of street chess at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. A world famous juggler is captured with a soccer ball cradled in his foot while suspended sideways from a light pole at the iconic Montmartre. Tourists overlook the Thames River and Big Ben in a breathtaking view of the London cityscape from the famous London Eye. The photographs in the exhibition were selected by award winning photographer Anita Nowacka, and Ann Pallesen, Gallery Director of Photo Center NW from Celis’s expansive body of work.
Sal Celis is a Seattle based photographer specializing in narrative portraiture, urban photography and scenic landscapes. Celis holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena CA, and has taken photography courses with the Mountaineers Photography Club, the Seattle Photography club, and online courses with Lynda.com.
Celis started his career as a mixed media painter and had solo and group exhibits in downtown Seattle in the mid 1990’s. Critics have referred to his work as evoking the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera for its composition and Marc Chagall for his ability to tell stories through his work. Celis discovered photography and fell in love with the rich medium and the ability to tell stories in a similar way to painting, but rather than manipulating paint on a canvas, is now manipulating light and subject through the lens. Celis’s work has been featured in Yahoo! Travel picture of the day and his portfolio can be found at Salcelisphoto.com and on Facebook at Sal Celis Photography.
5% of proceeds will be donated to Seattle based charitable organizations.
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