Using the iPad and iPhone as Creative Tools

About The Author

David Scott Leibowitz brings over thirty years of fascination with photography, video art, and experimental filmaking to his current position as a pioneer in the developing medium of Digital Art. Mr. Leibowitz is part of a new generation of artists who are redefining the boundaries of both fine arts and popular culture. Having come of age during the information revolution, his work merges an appreciation for the plastic arts with an affinity for advanced computer technology.

Mr. Leibowitz completed his formal education in 1976 with a bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema from the University of Bridgeport. Studies included film, video, photography, and art, with experimental filmaker Warren Bass, and Video artist Shalom Gorewitz. During the late seventies, he completed his formative period working for Director/Cinematographer Tibor Hirsch.

His early interests involved some kind of alteration of the traditional photographic image, which lead to his manipulation of Polaroid SX-70 film in 1977. He exhibited this medium, which he calls ‘Photo-Impressionism’, in an annual Soho exhibit for sixteen years. His work has been exhibited in a number of museum shows in New Jersey, and has been included in the corporate collections of IBM, Philip Morris, Polaroid, Canon USA, Microsoft, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Leibowitzs’ experience with video art during and after university, brought him hands-on knowledge of video systems, and special effects. In 1980, he established a company to provide playback, and assorted video analysis to film production companies, and advertising agencies on the sets of TV commercials. He was the first on the East coast to use Media 100 non-linear editing equipment for Video assist. This brought accurate slo-motion, post effects, and instant editorial to the set, a valuable production tool we all now take for granted. He is now using QTAKE HD technology, state-of –the-art multi-camera recording, compositing, editorial and 3D.

While maintaining his company, Leibowitz has pursued his personal interest in creating a new visual language through the use of photography, videography, 3D renderings and collage assembled on the Macintosh platform.

In 1991, he was approached by Jim Ross and Randy Pardy of Detroit Digital Studios to bring his unique skill and vision to a Shima Seiki Image Graphics Workstation. The resulting work has produced images of extraordinary beauty and delicacy. In the next few years, this work was been published in a feature article in Confetti magazine, in Polaroid’s Test magazine, twice in Computer Artist magazine, in the Jeremy Gardiner book, Digital Photo-Illustration and on the Quantum Access CD-Rom, The Virtual Gallery. His work with the application Painter was published in a few of the Fractal Design Painter books. In 1995 he turned his attention to the moving image, hand painting video a frame at a time in the computer and incorporated 3D rendering into his art.

At the turn of the century, he designed the searchable web site, Leibo.net as a living, ever changing portal into his world. It extensively documents this artist’s evolution of imagery into the digital age, and is updated constantly with new work. In 2008, he began making art on a new computing platform, Apple’s iPhone, and using dozens of iPhone apps, is now creating Art as new as the latest Photo/Art apps release. In 2009, he co-developed his iPhone app, “iCreated” with developer Andrew Stone, that is dedicated to promoting iPhone art via a gallery of international artists, and creating a visual link between iPhone art, and applications.

2010 saw the introduction of his iPad Art and the co-founding of iAMDA, the International Association of Mobile Digital Artists, an organization dedicated to promoting iPhone and iPad art.

With a multitude of images created in various mediums, the latest tools and techniques and a refined artistic sensibility, Mr. Leibowitz, camera still in hand, continues his pursuit of new methods to match new visions.