A salon, in the original sense.
What is a salon?
Art salons have been held in Paris since the late 17th century as public exhibitions of artworks. The French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture sponsored the official events, which were highly conservative and imposed strict rules on style, subject matter, and technique. They were held in the Louvre Palace's salon carré, which gave them their name.
Some innovative and independent artists felt excluded or rejected by the jury, leading them to create their own alternative exhibitions, which became known as art salons. These were often organized by associations or groups of artists who shared a common aesthetic or political agenda.
We borrow the name on purpose. A salon is a room where the work is brought, looked at closely, and argued about by the people who made it.
A community of cinematographers.
Cinematography Salon is a community of cinematographers, ACs, colorists, and adjacent crafts. We talk about light, lenses, and the practice of making images — but more than anything, we talk to each other. The podcast archive holds the long-form conversations. The community holds the rest.
How we got here.
The Salon started in 2015 as a small group of working cinematographers trading notes between jobs. The podcast came in 2023, sponsorships and events followed, but the room itself is older than any of it — the conversations the founders wished existed, finally finding their way into public.
The podcast is on hiatus while the industry contracts and sponsor budgets tighten — the catalog stays here. The community continues. New writing keeps going up. New chapters get written.
Started by a working cinematographer.
Cinematography Salon was founded in 2015 by David Kruta — a cinematographer who wanted the room described above to exist for real: a place for working DPs to trade notes between jobs. What began as small meetups grew into the podcast, the events, and the community it is today. David still hosts and shapes the Salon.
He works between New York, LA, and Boston. His credits include Agent Game (Mel Gibson, Jason Isaacs), Orion, and METANOIA (David Dastmalchian), alongside earlier features including the Sundance selection Concussion and The Sounding (Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography). He is a two-time Emerging Cinematographer Awards recipient and a 2023–2024 ASC Vision Mentee.
Members keep the conversation going.
The Salon runs on Patreon support — the group, the writing, the events when we can put them on. If you find a home in the room, joining at any tier helps it stay open and ad-light.