Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Marjorie Salvaterra graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and now makes her home in Los Angeles. Her interest in the theatrical began a transformation from acting to photography after playing the leading role in “The Faculty Lounge,” a black and white film by the late photographer, Herb Ritts. Rekindling an early interest, she fell completely in love with photography and began her studies anew in the Venice, California based Julia Dean Photo Workshops.
           Borrowing from her theatrical background, Salvaterra’s luminous black and white portraits pack a powerful dramatic punch. A masterful handling of light enhances the supple quality of malleable expression, reflecting the fragile human spirit. Those portrayed emerge from the dark: defiant, proud, defeated, joyous, maudlin. Marjorie Salvaterra’s images reveal “a fine line between sanity and insanity,” according to Virginia Heckart, Associate Curator of Photography at The Getty Center. “I’ve always been fascinated by human psychology,” says Salvaterra, “when most girls were reading Judy Blume, I was reading the DSM which lists all the psychological disorders and their symptoms. It is easy to go through the list of symptoms for the various disorders and think, ‘that could be me.’ Are we all a little crazy — at least at certain moments in our lives?
           Is it nurture vs. nature? Some believe people are either born sane or insane. Others believe we are all born perfect and it’s the things that happen in our lives that damage us. I tend to believe the latter. In each portrait,