Stephen Damian Ciaffa was born on March 19, 1963 in Yonkers, New York. In May of that same year, his family relocated to Gardena, California, a few miles west of downtown Los Angeles. He acquired his first camera in 1975 at age 12, which was a Polaroid Land camera. In 1980 he was given his first 35mm camera; a Canon AE-1. He began to methodically document his natural and cultural Southern California surroundings, and rarely went anywhere without it.
He benefited from exploring photography as an elective in both middle school and high school and first studied photography as a fine art starting in 1983, at Saddleback Junior College in Mission Viejo, California. There, he explored traditional and experimental techniques under the mentorship of Jerry Burchfield. While attending Saddleback, he exhibited his work for the first time, winning the purchase award in the college’s juried exhibition, Art on the Edge.
In the spring of 1986, Ciaffa enrolled in the Creative Photography program at California State University Fullerton. While there, he studied under Eileen Cowin and Darryl Curran. It was during this time that Ciaffa honed his craft and began exploring a photographic vision that he pursues to this day. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with a photography emphasis from Fullerton in 1989.
In 1990, Ciaffa relocated to Sonoma County, California, where in 1992 he met his soon to be wife, Katrin. After marrying in 1993, they moved to Katrin’s home city of Hamburg, Germany. During his two year stay, he compiled an extensive body of work documenting Hamburg and its surroundings, which became his Hamburg Diary portfolio.
In May of 1995, Ciaffa returned to Sonoma County and began exhibiting his work locally. He helped co-found Santa Rosa’s Silverstone Gallery and in 1999 had his work exhibited at the Barry Singer Gallery in Petaluma, California. During this time he also founded a critique group with local photographers and was a member of Santa Rosa’s Camera Art Committee. In September 2004, a solo exhibition of his work was shown at 29 Palms Gallery, in 29 Palms, California. In 2006, a selection of Ciaffa's work was featured in the inaugural issue of Emulsion Magazine, a print publication dedicated to analog black and white photography.
In 2023, Ciaffa’s work was chosen to appear in the 2023 de Young Open exhibition at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, California. This prestigious exhibition includes his piece, Cloudburst Utopia, and showcased talent from all nine Bay Area counties. The exhibition ran from September 30th 2023 until January 7th 2024. In addition, his piece, The Mechanic, Avenal CA 1984, was a cash prize selection in New York Art Competition's 2022/2023 5th annual Chelsea International Photography Competition.
Ciaffa lives in Santa Rosa, California with is wife Katrin and their three cats, Eno, Valentino and Yoshimi.
