Stephen McLaughlin was raised in the small Southern Illinois town of Flora and moved farther down the state in 1970 and now resides in Herrin, Illinois.

Steve received a degree in Photography from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and is in charge of Distance Learning and the webmaster at John A. Logan College in Carterville, Illinois. He also term faculty in the Art Department for Photography and Computer Art Classes.

He has over 25 years behind a camera, but he is now using a computer to engineer images into the creation he sees in his subject matter. "I have worked with regular photography for many years and loved it, but there were always limitations of some kind. Now, I do something I call digital painting to create the kind of work that I feel expresses what I see and feel from my subject material."

The "digital painting" process involves taking an original photograph, putting it into a computer and actually painting in sky, shadows, color, and details that give an image a look that is similar to watercolor, but still has many of the traits of a photograph. Each image is then printed out on a professional printer using special pigmented inks and archival watercolor paper.

To see an example of a photograph made into a digital painting click here.