Fine Art Color Photography; Biography of Zeny Cieslikowski

Fine Art Color Photography

Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland 1943
Currently lives and works in Northern California

Education:
Attended University of California, Riverside
Majored in Political Science
Self-Taught in Photography

The original fine art photographs displayed on ColorPhotographs.com were taken by Zeny Cieslikowski. The cityscape images are from cities such as San Francisco, New York, Venice, Rome, Florence, London, and Paris. Other photos were taken in Mexico, California, Napa & Sonoma Counties, Tuscany, New Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Burgundy, Cinque Terre, the Amalfi Coast, Greece, England and Provence.

Zeny began his fine art photography career by photographing France and Spain in 1967. His professional time was divided between commercial pictures and fine art until 1984, at which time fine art photography became his sole profession. Unlike many photographers, Zeny personally prints both his color and black & white images to insure the proper interpretation of the original negative.

Zeny was honored June 4, 1990 when Stanford University presented a portfolio of his original photographs of Stanford to President & Mrs. Mikhail Gorbachev as the official gift from Stanford University to the President of the Soviet Union.

What I Do

This is what I do. I walk countless miles, drive many more and fly all around our world to discover or reveal an image composed of light, always light first; then, color, form and from these elements I hope to create a composition with meaning and substance for me. Sometimes, I even find that ideal combination right on our table in the living room with the north light streaming in giving an object a life and meaning of its own.

Yes, I do it for myself, above all, because if I don't like it, think it has no worth or value in my life, why do it? Why waste my time and effort in doing something mediocre, banal or derivative? I believe always striving to make the best work of photographic art that I possibly can is important.

I begin by 'capturing' an image of, say a street in Mexico bursting with color and texture, or the timeless dignity of a lady cloaked in her shawl, walking past an architectural gem of a building; a building with such marvelous light shining on it that I might have to wait another decade to duplicate this luminous moment. Weeks or months later, I go into the darkroom and use all of my experience and skill to create a photographic print that will remind me of that precise moment and allow me to share that experience with others.

Why traditional darkroom prints? It's time-consuming, expensive and hard physical work. I do it because I like the results more than any other method (at this time) of best rendering the essence of a fleeting moment in my life when the convergence of form, texture, light and subject matter all combined at a precise instant to form a timeless composition that helps provide meaning to my life. And, I have been very lucky to have found others who want to share that momentary union of elements.

I have chosen my film and paper carefully in an attempt to arrive at my vision of photography and to offer to my collectors a work of art of the highest quality and of lasting value.

I'm very glad to have the opportunity to share my work with you. Thank you for taking time to look at and consider making my photographs a part of your life.