Adam Chin is a fine art photographer who spent a career as a computer graphics artist for TV and film. He was one of the original employees of Pacific Data Images, a pioneering computer graphics studio which later became part of Dreamworks Animation. Adam did computer graphics lighting on the Shrek, Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon, and Kung Fu Panda series of animated feature films.
Adam practices using Machine Learning neural networks trained on databases of real photography to render images. By augmenting traditional photography with neural networks, he is exploring the concept of how much information is contained in a given photograph.
Adam studied darkroom photography under Barry Umstead at Rayko Photography in San Francisco.
From 1995-2000, he was a board member and chairperson of Intersection for the Arts, a multi-disciplinary arts organization in San Francisco.
In 2020, he was named one of the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photo portfolio award winners, and in 2022 he won the 30 Over 50: In Context award from the Center for Fine Art Photography.
Adam also manages the photographic archive of his late uncle, Benjamen Chinn, who photographed San Francisco’s Chinatown and Paris in the late 1940’s and early 50’s.
Adam has a MS in Computer Science from Stanford and a BS in Computer Science from Yale. He lives in San Francisco.