Origin Story
cuba, april 2025
I was on my fourth trip to Cuba. Our focus was supporting the Cuban people through creative exchange and collaboration with local artists and communities. By the time we reached Viñales, a small town in the countryside, we were on day 5. We had already moved through the initial butterflies of traveling with a new group and settled into a quiet, creative rhythm making work side by side.
There were eleven of us all with cameras taking in our surroundings under the hot sun. At some point, we realized we had been adopted by a small black and white dog. She trotted alongside our group for an hour or two, resting in the shade when we did, walking slowly along as we photographed. Another welcomed addition. As we wandered, someone wondered aloud what we should name her. I overheard Teresa call her “Domino.”
Particularly because these trips were by and for women, there was always a special kind of creative magic that emerged within each group. Wild meeting wild. Letting ideas take flight. Photographic confidence uplifted by community. A domino effect of creative freedom.
Back home in Oakland, life kind of moved on. I continued with my freelance photo hustle. The idea of creating a container for community kept bubbling back up in the lonely moments behind my editing screen.
I attended a photo event in San Francisco in December and walked into a room of dudes with Leicas. I left the event feeling an intense hunger for a local photo community centering women+ photographers and so Photo Saloon was born.
A space where photography and lens based art is a tender form of self expression, world building, and resistance, where community and collective are central to the vision and values. A reminder that art making is contagious, and that community is essential to creative growth, risk taking, and the development of photographic style and taste.
Photo Saloon was born as a work in progress and a labor of love, through many random DMs and feedback from people I admire.
A space to find a sense of creative safety.
A space to let ideas be spoken into existence.
A space where intuition is valued.
A space to be fucking wild.
A space to make friends.
A space to learn.
A space to be you.
“I photograph from life”
—Katrin Koennig