Jeff Schewe – b.1954,
Chicago, Illinois
Artist Statement:
I turned to photography because I was a frustrated painter. With photography there is an ability to create an image with spontaneity and freshness that painting does not allow. Over the years, I’ve still kept my love of light and design originally nurtured with painting. It is with a painterly sensitivity that I now approach my vision and perspective in photography.
I like to shoot any subject as long as I can bring with it a unique viewpoint. Though my first exposure to photography was in the traditional darkroom, I now work by using a computer to digitally manipulate my images. The allure of total power and control over my images that digital imaging allows is so seductive that I now no long even maintain a darkroom. However, though my images are manipulated, I strive to work in a totally photo-realistic manner.
Jeff Schewe has been an award winning Advertising Photographer in Chicago for over 25 years. He is accomplished in tabletop, location, portraiture and particularly accomplished in computer imaging.
Jeff shoots a variety of subject matter and likes to control as much of the production as possible. He does this by making his own models, designing and building his own sets, painting backgrounds and employing computer imaging. He has been doing his own imaging for over 15 years in house on his high-end Macintosh systems.
Jeff Schewe is a Photoshop Guru’s Guru. He’s on the inside of the development and testing of Photoshop and has helped guide and direct many features since Photoshop 4.0. Short of some of the Photoshop engineers, there’s probably not many people who knows Photoshop like Jeff.
As an indication of his skills and knowledge of fine art printing, he has been named an Epson Stylus Pro. He is a past Apple Master of the Medium and has been inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. He speaks regularly at Photoshop World.
He is the coauthor of Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (along with the late Bruce Fraser) and is also coauthoring a book with Martin Evening titled Photoshop For Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop.
Jeff has a variety of video tutorials available with Michael Reichmann of the Luminious Landscape on digital printing, Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
Along with his his former and current partners; Martin Evening, Mac Holbert, Seth Resnick, Andrew Rodney, the late Bruce Fraser and the late Mike Skurski, he is a principal and founder of Pixel Genius LLC, a software developer for Photoshop related image processing such as PhotoKit, PhotoKit Sharpener and PhotoKit Color.
Education:
Illinois State University 1973-1974: Art Major
Rochester Institute of Technology 1975-1977:
Associates Degree with honors
in Photographic Arts
Rochester Institute of Technology 1978-1979:
Bachelor of Science with
highest honors in Professional Photography
