Craig Abaya

Abaya is a native of San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood.[2] He became involved in music during childhood, taking up the piano at age six, the drums at age eleven, and the guitar at age twelve. He became involved in film and photography at the age of nine.[2]

At seventeen, Abaya enrolled at San Francisco State University. Initially a psychology major, he ultimately proposed a special major in multimedia, combining studies in film, audio, video, computers and electronics.[3] He chose to call his major "Technology Interface", a name he selected from suggestions he received from members of American Zoetrope.

Craig Abaya

Abaya is a singer and cites his main instruments as guitar, piano, and drums. Although there is no direct influence on his passion for music, he would often hear his mother, a classical pianist, play the family piano, favoring the composer Claude Debussy. He also took up recording from a young age, moving from 2- and 4-track analog tape to ADAT and eventually to DAWs (digital audio workstations). At 17, he formed his first professional band, the grunge/metal trio "Apparition." At this time, he also wrote and performed music with the local church youth choir. After disbanding "Apparition," he founded the 4-piece group "The Basics" and later, "Abaya," in an attempt to merge his divergent musical interests. He has won numerous songwriting awards in various genres, including 10 from Billboard Magazine.[2]

Abaya started making films at age 9, starting with The Battle of McLaren Park, in which he spliced a scene of Clint Eastwood as a jet squadron leader from the classic sci-fi film, ‘’Tarantula’’ and earning his first television screen credit from films he shot age 12.[4]

Craig also writes, directs and edits his own music videos.

Craig is a new media council member of the Producers Guild of America.

Craig became interested in photography at age 9 when he received his first point-and-shoot camera. Among his first photos were shots of the aftermath of a police chase including officers making an arrest.

Music being his first love, he wanted to capture some of his musical heroes. For years he did so with borrowed photographic equipment but eventually purchased his first professional camera. His early photos included such musical artists as The Who, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Alice Cooper, Tina Turner, Chris Isaak, Elton John, Tom Petty, Leon Russell and Heart. Occasionally, he would have the opportunity to meet and photograph non-music based celebrities including Gilda Radner and Monty Python's Michael Palin.

In 2000, The Bridge School invited Craig to be their official concert photographer.

In 2006, Apple.com published an interview with Craig about his photography.[5]

In 2013, San Francisco's Macworld/iWorld Expo made Craig their featured artist with a gallery of his concert films and photography entitled Craig Abaya: The Art of Rock'N'Roll from Analog to Digital.[6]

Craig's photos have appeared in several books and periodicals such as the L.A. Times, Gentry Magazine, and Nash Country Weekly.

Abaya earned his first teaching experience at SFSU's Graduate Film school while he was still an undergraduate,[3] but eventually took a full-time position teaching in Silicon Valley plus occasional stints at San Francisco State University and elsewhere.[7] Eventually, he moved to SFSU College of Extended Learning, where he worked from 2000 to 2015, teaching and directing departments in Multimedia Studies, Music/Recording Industry, Digital Film Production, and Web Development.[8]

• ’’San Francisco in the 70s” (1991)
• ’’Bruce Hornsby Live at Villa Montalvo” (2002)
• ’’Joan Armatrading All the Way from America” (2004)
• ’’Stern Grove Concerts” (2007-2019)
• ’’Best of the Fest” (2020)
• ’’Bridge School News” (2008-2018)
• ’’Silly Sentimental Fool” (2009)
• ’’If I Had a Twin” (2016)
• ’’Trivia Time: To Have and to Have Not” (2016)
• ’’Multicam Editing” (2016)
• ’’Retrogirl” (2016)
• ’’Ambush” (2016)
• ’’Retrogirl 2” (2017)
• ’’Restless Soul” (2017)
• ’’The Nutcracker” (2018)
• ’’Behind Blue Eyes” (2020)
• ’’Cortical Visual Impairment” (2020)
• ’’Regret” (2021)
• ’’Will I Walk on Water” (2021)
• ’’Communication with First Responders During Emergencies and Disasters” (2021)
• ’’Laze the Day Away” (2021)
• ’’User” (2022)

• Craig Abaya at IMDb
• Pronunciation of the name Abaya
• Craig Abaya's Website
• MacWorld Featured Artist for 2013
• SFSU University Expert