Virtual Tours of
San Francisco Attractions
by pioneer 3-D photographer Ron Keas




     I first gained national attention for my artwork in 1983, when local Channel 8 News, in Salinas, did a story about me painting oil portraits of children's Cabbage Patch dolls.  The story was passed on to the NBC Today Show. I continued to paint pictures inspired by the daily events in the World News.  For example, when Pope John Paul II visited Carmel Ca, Mayor Clint Eastwood greeted him at the Carmel Mission I was inspired to do an oil painting of Clint dressed as an ice-cream man, pushing a cart, and handing the Pope three ice-cream cones- Vanilla, Strawberry, and Chocolate.  In the background was pictured the Carmel Mission.  This light hearted fantasy painting was published in magazines and newspapers across America and around the World.  Riding on this wave of this notoriety, I sold lithograph posters of his oil painting of Clint Eastwood dressed as a cowboy riding a hog.  He titled it, High on the Hog," or "Dirty Hairy Pig". 

     In 1985 I invented an optical illusion he called Echo-Vision. I had also developed and built a folding stereoscopic viewer that he used to view 3-D stereographs that I photographed with my own techniques. I set up a prehistoric terrarium on my porch, complete with a sky with Moon, a volcano with black light, and vegetation lit by white and colored lights. I used this set-up as a set to photograph Dinosaur models in color stereo-3D. The stereographs I made from these photo-shoots were sold with my stereo-viewer on the internet.  In 1986 these stereographs drew the attention of Sir Arthur C. Clarke online. He emailed me and told me he attributed his study of science to a set of black and white stereographs his father gave him when he was a boy.  He and I became friends over the internet, and I sent 50 stereo-viewers and Dinosaurs sets to Arthur as gifts to the children he cared for at Shri Lanka.  During this time, Ron traveled to the most popular National Parks to photograph them in 3-D in order to produce stereographs that he would sell with stereo-viewers on the internet.  In 1997, the first Mar's Rover landed on Mars.  NASA put photos taken by the Rover camera on the internet.  I downloaded these 2-D images and selected the ones with the angles that would allow for 3-D stereo-graphs to be made.  I then published these images to the internet, days before NASA did the same, making me the first to publish 3-D images of the surface of Mars.  These stereograph sets were also sold on the internet.

     From 1986 until 2004 I lived in Ben Lomond, a small town in the Santa Cruz Redwoods mountains.  There I photographed the Redwood's State Parks and supplied their Visitor Centers with stereo-images and slideshows of the Parks.

     For the next 20 years, I lived in Lake County, Ca. where he photographed the beauty of nature with Clear Lake as background.  Today the local hospitals, County buildings, businesses, and homes have my large, mounted photographs of beauty of Lake County displayed on their walls.

 In 2006, Presidential candidate Obama drew my attention.  I  began painting oil portraits of Obama that were inspired by current events, and for the next 8 years I painted his portraits and sold prints of them on the internet. Four of my Obama paintings were featured at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.  my painting of the First Family was featured in the Diversity Calendar, handed out at Obama's first inauguration.  The HuffingtonPost wrote, Ron Keas' Obama Paintings Make Us Proud To Be American. My oil portrait of Hillary sitting in the Oval Office was responded to with a heart warming letter from her.  Most recently I was commissioned to do a painting of President Lincoln by the owner of Ayers Mansion in Illinois, where President Lincoln used to visit his friend, Augustus Ayers.  My painting of President Lincoln now hangs at the Ayers Estate in Jacksonville, Illinois. The Mansion owner tells me that the portrait brings tears to the eyes of visitors. 

I am also Nationally known for my oil paintings that appeared on the front page of the New York Times, magazines, newspapers, and in books including "Art for Marilyn," "Princess Diana in Art " and "Art for Obama."

     This year I moved to San Francisco, eager to photograph the iconic views of the City.  Photographic prints of my art and photography are considered to be collectibles. I will also be producing mounted photo prints, and panoramic images including anaglyphic 3-D panoramic images to be viewed with red and blue glasses supplied with the prints.  I am also still taking commissions for oil portraits.

For 20 years, before recently moving to San Francisco, I photographed the beauty of Lake County, Ca.  Here is a link to my available mounted prints. 


photography of Lake County by Ron Keas


"I brought my heart, and camera, to San Francisco"




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Oil portraits by Ron Keas

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