ABOUT stevenD
I am an Artist who is a long-time resident of Orange County, California. My art is created exclusively through photography, not with digital/computer graphics. I have always had a flair for pushing the limits of creativity, shooting various subjects, in various locations with various cameras since the 70’s. In 2005, I began experimenting with lights and glass, I have been refining and expanding my techniques into the exciting results presented here. During my very first show, a month-long contest at a local Art Gallery, my “Mythos” piece won for “Most Creative”!
VISION
My passion is driven by the desire to create beautiful, dynamic and thought-provoking abstract art! Utilizing the effects of (colored) lights interacting with unique glass pieces in intricate set-ups, while harnessing factors such as absorption, refection, refraction, and dispersion, my work is dreamy, whimsical, even psychedelic. Using actual objects in my photographs adds a level of depth and realism that is unobtainable through paintings and graphic art programs and is why I have dubbed my work: “ARTography”.
PROCESS
Photography is typically used to capture a person, place, or thing, an activity, event, etc. in order to document it and be able to share with others. I use my camera as a tool, to create art:
- The camera/lens are my “Tools”
- The glass staged in my set-up is my “Canvas”
- The lights are my “Paint”
With well over 500 pieces of glass elements and colored lights, each scene is meticulously set-up, adjustments made, until that final passionate shot is captured. The files are imported into a photo-program for formatting, cropping and minimal adjustments. This is done to stay true to photography and not mix over into the computer graphics/digital genre. This means, no elements are created, what is shown – is what was captured by my camera!
