Artistic Background, Career, and Current Interests
 Steven began his study of photography while at high
school in Orange, California, having a special interest in photographic special effects,
manipulated imagery, unusual color film stocks, and creating multi-projector slide shows
with music. He also pursued video production and film animation during his last two years
of high school.He continued his study of photography, film animation and motion picture special effects while at UC Santa Barbara. Using a 35mm optical printer, an animation stand and a motion picture optical printer there, various techniques were explored to further grow in this field. James Turrell was Steven's key mentor there.
During September of 1986 and again in 1987, Steven organized, promoted and hosted two computer animation festivals at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, which were the first such shows of their kind in the world. 17,000 people paid to see the film presentations in the theater at the museum. The purpose was to raise public awareness of computer animation as an art form and communication medium. In 1988 Steven produced the world's first home entertainment video of computer animation, called "State of the Art of Computer Animation". He then decided to focus the company solely on producing these videos and theatrical presentations of computer animation. Pacific Arts Video distributed this first product on VHS and Laser Disc, which were sold around the world. The video won the "Best Video Art" award from the American Film Institute at their American Video Conference Awards Show in November of 1988. In 1990 Steven produced the first in a series of videos called "The Mind's Eye". These videos have featured the best computer animation from around the globe and have original scores created by notable music artists like Jan Hammer, Thomas Dolby, Kerry Livgren and Tangerine Dream. The four videos in this series have sold well over one million copies so far. All together, Steven has produced over 30 different videos of computer animation, in a variety of styles and formats. In 2003 Steven expanded the scope of the business with a new name, AnimationTrip, and a new destination website, www.AnimationTrip.com. Meanwhile, Steven has continued with his love of photography. His thoughts:
During the last ten years Steven has been spending a significant amount of time with his photographic art - shooting new images, manipulating existing images, adding images to his website, and he has had the opportunity to exhibit his work in several one-man shows and juried exhibitions. Steven's art consists of both "created imagery" and "captured imagery". He creates from scratch original images and also manipulates existing images to come up with something very unusual, using a variety of digital and photographic techniques. Much of Steven's work has a luminous quality to it (as if the subject is emitting it's own light rather than reflecting light). And it often has a certain form of abstraction and a sense a mysteriousness about it. Here are two web links containing a small portion of the media attention Steven has been receiving: San Diego Union Tribune article and the Featured Artist article at San Diego Artist. As Steven has become very involved in the San Diego art community during the past eight years, he has become aware of many very talented photographic artists here. In 2004 Steven organized, curated and judged the first Art of Photography Show, which was exhibited at the La Jolla Art Association Gallery in November of that year. 525 images were received to be considered, submitted by local photographers - though the gallery space could only accommodate 55 framed prints. There were over 400 people at the opening reception and 25% of the work was sold within the two-week exhibit of the show. So, the show was a big success in all respects.
Following the 2004 show, Steven and his team decided to produce a second exhibit. The
Art of Photography Show 2006 was an international exhibition of
photographic art which took place April 20 - June 4, 2006 at the elegant
Lyceum Theatre Gallery, located in the historic Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego, California. Arthur Ollman, the Director of the
Museum of Photographic Arts, was the
judge for this exhibition. A total of 9,517 photographic entries were
submitted by artists from 35 countries around the world. Mr. Ollman
selected 104 images for the exhibition. This was a truly exceptional presentation of
photographic art, and a very special cultural offering for the city of
San Diego. Click
here to
view the images from the Art of Photography Show 2006. This website will be an ongoing and
evolving "virtual gallery" for Steven's photographic art. Feel free to write and share your thoughts about the work. |
Following
college, Steven worked for a company in Orange County which had just developed a
state-of-the-art optical printer camera system, and then he later worked for a company in
San Diego which was producing large 30 projector multi-image slide shows. In 1982 he
struck out on his own and founded Odyssey Visual Design, the first San Diego company to
produce 3-D computer animation. Clients included Coca Cola, General Dynamics, Union Oil,
Southwestern Cable, Metrocast, Honda, and TV stations all over the country.
