George Salter
Maker Monday - October 2026
About the Artist
Name: George Salter
Medium: photography
Years creating: 50 years
SCAA Member since: 2016
Based in: Charlestown, RI
Website: gsalterphoto.net
Click an image to view portfolio slideshow
This month's Maker Monday featured artist is George Salter. Since returning to photography, his work has focused on street portraiture and documenting people and cultures around the world. Recent projects include photographing communities in Kibera, Kenya, and the Omo Valley of Ethiopia, where his Suri portraits were featured in the group exhibition Four Visions at the Hoxie Gallery in Westerly. His Omo Valley Collection is represented by Candita Clayton Gallery in East Greenwich. Very recently, he won the William Zahn Memorial Award in the juried, all media show "Working" at the Salmagundi Club in New York with the piece "Grinding Flour - Java, Indonesia."
George's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and recent awards include First Prize at Plymouth Center for the Arts and First Place at Wickford Art Association (2026), as well as Third Prize at SCAA’s Open Juried All Media Exhibition (2026).
- SCAA
Where are you from, and what do you make?
I grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, and attended public schools there. I lived with my parents and two sisters until I left for college in 1967. I am a photographer who enjoys making street portraits of people from different cultures around the world.
How long have you been seriously pursuing art?
I started taking pictures in the mid-seventies as a way of expressing an artistic creativity I had not yet defined. I photographed everything that presented itself to me with interesting light. I taught myself as I went along. I’ve always thought that if you want to be good at something, you must be willing to be bad at it for as long as it takes.
What inspires you to create?
I’m a very visual person, and I see beauty in ordinary things. Everywhere I look, there are compositions of light and shadows, lines and angles, colors and shapes -- and moments worth remembering.
Which artist outside of your chosen medium has had the most impact on your art? What do they do, and in what way do they influence you?
My photography has been greatly influenced by Caravaggio and his use of shadows to create the illusion of depth in his portraits. For me, each face is a landscape. The right balance of highlights and shadows gives definition to facial features and allows a portrait to engage and direct the viewer’s eye.
Is there a work of art that has changed your life or how you view the world in some way?
Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize Winning 1972 photograph of Kim Phuc “Napalm Girl” had a profound influence on how I viewed humanity in general, and how I viewed the hypocrisy of our country’s involvement in the war in Viet Nam.
As a member of SCAA, what do you like most about us?
SCAA is an arts organization that encourages growth at all levels of its members’ artistic abilities. I always feel welcome and comfortable there, and I believe that my membership and participation are genuinely appreciated.
Tell us a joke.
I went into a bookstore and asked the clerk, “where are your self-help books?”
She replied, “well, if I told you, it would defeat the purpose.”