Multi-Award Winning music-for- television composer Daniel Stein of Calabasas, CA, has segued his considerable talents away from music, and into fine art photography. His new passion is in photographing unique architecture, classic automobiles and extraordinary natural landmarks and monuments. His new pieces of art, currently on display at museums and galleries across the U.S., are available for purchase as for stock photographic purposes through www.danielsteinphotography.com.
Stein specializes in traditional black and white photography. His visual “philosophy” is to capture “moments in time” that express patterns, fractals, and geometry within our common environment. These elements combine to form designs that transcend borders and ideology, thus reminding everyone that we all inhabit the same great planet.
Stein loves Architectural photography. One of his ongoing projects is developing a photographic portfolio of Downtown Los Angeles, focusing his camera lens on old architecture that has been neglected, hidden and/or otherwise long ignored. He strives to capture this cultural appeal in a unique and diverse way.
Regarding his passion for car photography as depicted in his “Autophotopia” series, Stein says, “My love for the automobile is genetic. My grandfather had one of the first Kaiser-Frazer dealerships in Philadelphia, and spent his life selling many different lines of cars. Throughout the years, one of my favorite activities was to go visit him at his car lot and explore all of the different models of autos he was selling.”
He adds, “As my love for design and photography matured, I was drawn more and more to appreciate the lines, form, and high performance beauty molded out of raw steel in so many different styles of cars. These unique perspectives of classic automotive design evoke in me an emotional pull of both nostalgic and modern design. My photographic images are shot on traditional medium format black and white film, which I then digitally process, and print out, using archival pigment inks.”
Stein confesses that he always wanted a time machine! “However,” he says, “My camera lens is as close as I will get to going back, allowing me to freeze moments in time, even though my subjects are always static.”
Stein, who perceives his own personality as “very black and white,” is also intensely interested in photographing unique displays of architecture. He is fascinated by the density of the urban structure of a city – its patterns, shapes and geometry. Conversely, he is also taken with fractals, via Mother Nature’s wide-open spaces, earth formations and monuments. Hence, his photographic focus is tri-fold—architecture, autos and wondrous, natural landscapes, all get his creative juices really flowing.
ABOUT DANIEL STEIN
Daniel Stein was born and raised in Philadelphia, but spent most of his formative years in New York City. While the East Coast will always have a special place in his heart, Daniel subsequently built his life and career in Southern California during two decades. As a child, his parents were extremely supportive of his artistic pursuits, having sent him to a local art school at the age of six. A few years later, they gifted him with his first 35mm (Pentax K2) camera, which quickly prompted his transformation of the family garage into a darkroom.
Continuing his artistic pursuits as a young adult, Daniel attended Syracuse University’s College of Visual Arts. His creative direction took a turn when, after one year of art school, he was accepted to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.
For more than 25 years, Daniel enjoyed an extremely successful career in the music business as a composer, musician and producer, providing music tunes to thousands of TV shows, movies and television commercials. However, even while working as a music composer, he has never strayed too far from his “visual arts roots.” He has always felt that his musical talents—and successes—have merely been other expressions of his art.
Daniel considers himself “A composer by trade, A photographer by passion.” Today, his lifelong love of photography has matured and flourished. He readily combines a musician’s sense of timing, pace, depth, emotion, lyrical quality and intimacy of subject matter with a gifted photographer’s sense for expansive awareness of his surroundings, to include texture, simplicity and energy.
Daniel Stein makes pictures with the same intensity that he has long incorporated while making music. His photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and cultural centers across America, including shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Judith Kaufman Gallery in North Hollywood, CA, the Doma Art Gallery in Charlotte, NC, the Photo Alliance in San Francisco, and on the acclaimed website: PhotoBistro.com.
For more information about Daniel Stein and his photographic art, please visit www.danielsteinphotography.com.
