See his print work and in-depth interview

PHOTOGRAPHY/IMAGE CREATION STORY
Dan’s studio started the same year Photoshop was released (1990) so with a long background in photography he excelled at combing images and design concepts into collage work that put them on the map. He has always experimented with alternative photo equipment and darkroom processing. Over the last 45 years he has shot in many formats from 5x7 to toy plastic cameras.

His photos have appeared in many juried photography shows across the country and his digital imagery in dozens of books and magazines. He has lectured widely on digital image creation. And has given many presentations for Apple and Adobe on digital photography and alternative processes. His prints are for sale in the Woodmere Museum of Art.

He wrote the first book on mobile photo manipulation for Peachpit Press “iPhone Obsessed” in 2010, which was translated into 3 languages, in addition to publishing many app store interactive ebooks on photography. He has organised several landmark iPhoneography events and international competitions. More recently he has lectured on “making AI personal”... controlling Artificial Intelligence with original camera input and manual post processing... for National Geographic, AIGA, APA, Tyler school of Art (Temple University) and the University of Delaware.

ARTIST STATEMENT ABOUT HIS GENERATIVE WORKFLOW

My work brings together physical artifacts and personal impressions from my visual journey, traditional photography, mobile image-making, and my design sensibility shaped by decades of hands on digital craft. These materials become the foundation that I mix into the emerging world of AI-driven image creation.

Every piece begins with my own source material - photographs, textures, sketches, and handcrafted visual prompts so the final images stay grounded in my personal history, aesthetic, and intent. Also I rely on minimal word-prompting, avoiding style keywords, artist names, and imitation instructions to reduce AI’s “style-mining” behaviour. And then I add and remove elements by hand with Photoshops (commercially safe) generative fill, further removing any copy-write issues. By building my images this way, my approach remains truer to my vision and far less entangled in the infringement issues that surround many AI-generated works.

Rather than replacing craft, these new tools expand it. They allow me to merge decades of analog experience with modern generative workflows, revealing forms and narratives that sit between the genuine and the generated. The result is a practice that honour’s where I’ve come from while exploring how technology can open new creative territories with integrity.