Benjamin
Skrainka

Ben Skrainka grew up in St. Louis surrounded by art — his mother, painter Linda Skrainka, co-founded the St. Louis School after working for Alfred H. Barr, Jr. at MoMA, ensuring that Malevich and Monet were more familiar than baseball. The tension between technology and art never resolved itself: he studied physics, then went "downhill" to economics, traded the trumpet for a Leica, and kept the darkroom instincts he developed in high school.

His photography education is mostly Leica Akademie coursework and the age-old, unaccredited school of walking around with his eyes open. Among his teachers, Dotan Saguy, Gail Fisher, and Eolo Perfido were particularly influential. Based in Seattle, he works in documentary, street, and travel photography — including an extended project on a boutique Sonoma winemaker — driven by the conviction that essential human experience is worth the effort of paying attention.

To support his wife's love of agrarian living, he is also developing what may become the definitive body of work in chicken portraiture.