Steve completed a Fine Art Photography degree in 1988, and has worked steadily on commissions relating to books, catalogues, artistic events in the area and internationally since that time. Awards and bursaries have helped him to develop work from places in Europe, Northern Ireland, Africa, the Russias, and to show these in numerous exhibitions in the locale and abroad. In 1995 the Falmouth Art Gallery gave him a solo show, after his European tour with Kneehigh Theatre in 1994 (South West Arts Award).

He has taught at both Falmouth College of Arts and Penwith College part-time, and expanded his repertoire into film-making (Brainstorm Films) as well as free-lance photography. He was in receipt of a Millennium Festival Award for a short drama 'Field of Fish' from which his exhibition piece at Falmouth Art Gallery in 2000 was taken. For the number of years that it took to gather, collate and publish the superb volume, Cornwall & Isles of Scilly: Oil Paintings in Public Ownership, Steve Tanner was the photographer for this massive project (published 2007).