HARVEY STEARN

Harvey Stearn has had several careers. He has been a Fortune 100 corporate executive, a community developer and a homebuilder. He was Chairman of the California Arts Council, and served on numerous arts organization boards. Currently, Mr. Stearn is a Sedona city councilman. Harvey Stearn has also been a passionate photographer for over 50 years. He made his first monochrome prints in 1951 and quickly mastered that medium. He made his first color prints in 1970. Over many years, he mastered the craft of color photography as well, which is a very different medium than black and white photography. He is one of very few photographers that excel in both art forms. In 1994, Harvey Stearn entered the new field of digital photography. As the technology improved, he was able to produce images that rival and often exceed silver prints in quality. Today, he uses high resolution cameras and scanners to create images of great vibrancy and impact.

Harvey Stearn’s images have won numerous awards, and are in private collections throughout the United States. His monochrome photograph of a Bristlecone Pine tree was exhibited at the Laguna Beach Museum of Art in 1979. In 1980, he was commissioned by the Registry Hotel in Orange County, CA to create a large monochrome photograph for their main lobby. Mr. Stearn’s photographs appeared extensively on billboards and in magazines for the “California Promise” advertising campaign, which was selected by the American Marketing Association in 1983 as the most effective real estate ad campaign in the United States.

Mr. Stearn retired to Sedona in 2002 to pursue his passion for photography full-time. He is Photography Program Director for the Sedona Arts Center. His images are on permanent display there and also at the Institute of Ecotourism, at the Sedona City hall and at the Bella Terra Bistro in Sedona, and are featured in several Sedona galleries A series of his Sedona images were submitted to the United States Congress to illustrate a current application for National Scenic Area designation. His photographs also appear on the cover and throughout the body of the application for National Scenic Byway designation for SR179, the main route into the Sedona area. Though he specializes in landscapes and nature photography, one of Mr. Stearn’s fashion photographs was used for the cover of Apparel News in 2005. His images of the recent Brins wildfire in Sedona illustrated the feature article of the August 2006 issue of Emergency Management magazine.