James Porto is an artist of immeasurable talent; his unique vision and immense technical skills have placed him in the vanguard of contemporary photography. He received a Bachelor of Science in Professional Photography degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1982, moved to New York City and began working as a photo assistant. He opened his own photography studio in New York City in 1985. His specialty was producing multiple image special effect photographs for advertising and editorial clients using elaborate darkroom and in-camera techniques before pioneering digital imaging technologies. He received a grant from New York Fellowship for the Arts to do a series of cubist images and has since exhibited his work in New York City, nationally and internationally. More recently, he participated in a group show of photography at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cincinnati. He is currently represented by the Christopher Henry Gallery in New York City.
The eternal dreams series is a personal body of work that James has enjoyably labored at for some 8-9 years now. These women of beauty, strength and vulnerability are representative of the many qualities that the artist sees and admires in the female, in addition to the subtle and underlying commentary about the condition of mother earth with the dilemmas that we all face. To us as the viewer they are exquisite compositions that evoke a mixture of emotions and challenge our sense of reality, for some they satisfy our need for eternal beauty within our daily existence.
He has collaborated with various artists in both advertising and editoial projects. Some of the artists include Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair and Joanne Gair, make-up artist and body painter, on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 2001. In addition, he developed a national advertising campaign with Blue Man Group.
His advertising clients include Absolute, Adidas, AT&T, Bell Helicopters, Epson, IBM, Illford, Kodak, Lockheed, Motorola, Nike, Pepsi, Reebok, Seagrams, Sony, and Texas Instruments. Some of his editorial clients include American Photo, Art Direction, Business Week, ESPN, Fortune, Forbes, Glamour, GQ, New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, New York, Photo Italia, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Time, and Wired.