about me

I started in the graphic arts in 1988 as a stat camera operator at Scott Mednick & Assoc.,   a graphic design firm in Los Angeles. 

At Mednick, I was introduced to the Mac, Photoshop (v 1.0!!!) and the Wacom tablet. 

Mednick did a lot of work for Reebok at the time and that's where I heard about the mythical, magical, "Quantel Paintbox". I saw an 8x10 chrome output from a Kodak LVT and what they could do with the Paintbox… well, I was hooked. I took a Paintbox class at UCLA then dove head first into Photoshop and never looked back.

1992... I moved on to Seiniger Advertising, also in Los Angeles.

Seiniger specialized in movie poster design and my mission there was firstly, to be a photo retoucher/comp artist and secondly, to get all of the creative staff up to speed with the latest software and hardware available. Seiniger was wanting to transition from airbrushes and X-Acto knives to the Mac and Photoshop in order to produce more "finished" looking poster comps. 

I spent $300K of Tony's money on Macs, servers and networks and learned a ton about the movie poster business, working along side some brilliant art directors and creatives. 

1994… at this point I really wanted to get into high-end photo retouching and wound up at Metafor Imaging, a digital retouching studio in Culver City, CA. 

I started as a junior artist, worked my way up to senior artist, and got to work on national ad campaigns for the likes of Nike, Lexus, BMW and Porsche, as well as work with local entertainment design studios to finish poster art for movie titles such as Gattaca, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Men In Black, and many others. 

1997... I left Metafor for the freelance retoucher life.

1999... I had the opportunity to take a position as creative director and studio manager at Digitango, a brand new digital art studio in San Francisco.

Digitango was to offer retouching, an in house photography studio and seamless integration with a top notch local separator and our parent company, Pacific Color. Pacific Color was looking to capitalize on the dot com boom by offering Bay area ad agencies a flagship digital art studio that could handle any creative needs they might have. 

Working with architect Daren Joy, he and I designed and built the ultimate studio space. Featuring a neon-retro interior design theme, Digitango set out to create an inviting and comfortable environment for ourselves and our clients. 

(check out the nice photos Marty took of the studio below)

Next, we had to hire a staff of creatives to get the work done. 

Angela Faunce (sales, studio/office manager), Kevin Montgomery (I/O manager - drum scanning - proofing) and Sam Nordemann (artist - retoucher) and Marty Scanduto (photographer) filled out the studio staff.

I couldn't have asked for a better, more talented group of folks to work or share a hangover with.

I also helped establish and grow relationships with new and existing clients, and on top of all this, I was the lead artist/retoucher and oversaw the execution of all artwork produced at Digitango.

I set out to create a fun environment that would keep the best creatives in the business coming back and issued a standing invitation to all to just stop by and shoot pool and sample from our well stocked kitchen and bar.

On Sept 14, 2000,  Digitango had it's grand opening party with several hundred of the best creatives from around the land in attendance...

… but as we were celebrating, the dot com bubble burst. Not long after, ad agencies all over San Francisco began laying off staff by the dozens, some closing their doors forever.

I left Digitango in 2001 with the studio soldiering on for a time before closing it's doors. (Actually, somebody pointed out that one of the photo studios owned by the big corp. that owned us all took over the name, something like that.) 

We got to work with some great clients on some big name brands like Pets.com, Timberland Athletic and EA Sports… but, life goes on.

2002... I was back in L.A., freelancing, when I had the opportunity to work with a local high-end photo lab, The Icon, to help them get a top tier digital department off the ground. 

I was basically starting from scratch and gathered technicians, artists and vendors together to provide The Icon's clients with digital photo services second to none, everything from retouching to drum scanning to large format output.

2003... With The Icon digital department up and running, it was back to the freelance life. 

2016... finds me back in Los Angeles working on a mix of entertainment, automotive, and corporate advertising accounts. You gotta to keep things interesting…