Jay Seldin (@phototraveler8) is a fine art photographer, photo travel entrepreneur, and instructor. Jay has spent the bulk of his career as a teacher, whether teaching graphic design and photography at the high school level, or more recently conducting workshops and photo tours all over the world.
This conversation tracks Jay’s early career and how he got into teaching, his accidental discovery of the Macintosh, how he transitioned into leading workshops and tours, and how Prescott learned the graphic design trade in 1998–99 as a high school senior.
Check out Jay’s photography on his website, or check out his photo workshops via his company page
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Environmental Portraits in Cuba, by Jay Seldin
Show Notes & Links
- Jay defines himself as an “environmental portrait photography”
- Jay Seldin on YouTube
- Jay’s photo career began when he was forced to take a humanities class in college
- Developing a print in a darkroom was Jay’s “lightbulb moment” (and that lightbulb was probably red)
- When he was 18, Jay did a cross-country road trip to San Francisco
- On The Road by Jack Kerouac on Amazon and on Audible
- Jay earned 60¢/hr working in a photo studio in New York
- Photography was considered “Industrial Arts” and “Art” depending on the school, and the state
- Jay taught at West Orange High School, and later Columbia High School
- Ansel Adams, famous landscape photographer
- Mary Ellen Mark
- Eugene Richards
- Lucien Clergue
- Michael Kenna
- Ruth Bernard
- Apple Lisa & Apple Mac — The big decision in Jay’s teaching career c.1984
- Floppy disks
“That mouse made all the difference in the world.”
—Jay Seldin
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- The Original Apple Macintosh
- Adobe Photoshop 4.0
- QuarkXPress 4.1
- Aldus (later Adobe) Pagemaker
- Mac Draw
- Mac Write
- Matt Kushner, now an animator
- Sally Warner, now an oceanographer
- Prescott credits his time on the newspaper staff as his first true graphic design role
- Bluelines
- Guildscript, Columbia High School’s literary magazine
- Columbia High School had the first computer graphics lab in the state of NJ
- Continuous Tone Print
- Jay’s purpose-built studio above his garage
Jay Seldin in his studio, surrounded by gear and his work
- In addition to printing, Jay also does mentoring/tutoring in his studio
- The principal activity is [still] teaching
- The workshop trips gained momentum slowly, with interest among friends
- ICP asked him to run programs
- It takes a year for Jay to put together a good workshop
- The Newark Museum
- Cuba Cultural Travel
“When you go to a museum, there's no Cuban art. Because of the Embargo.”
—Jay Seldin
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- Locally grown Cuban coffee
- The environmental footprint of coffee
- Cuban-American relations are approaching normal, whatever that means.
- The Cuban Free Internet, still to be determined
- Cuban Baseball League? Maybe.
- Cuba, The Accidental Eden, from PBS “Nature”, not the BBC
- The Royal Ballet in Cuba, from Channel4, not the BBC
- Jay and Not-So-Silent Bob on Facebook
Tools
- Mac, printer, scanner — basically the same basic arrangement since the mid-1980s
- Epson Pro Stylus 9600 (44″ wide-format printer)
- Adobe Photoshop, even in Cuba
- A Map with marked locations of places to go
- 1966 Corvette Convertible
Techniques
- Learn on your own, and then teach it others
- Get a local “guy” who knows the area you’re looking to photograph
- Gather ideas from your past customers/attendees
Habits
- Travel with someone who’s part of the “system” as well as some who aren’t
- Wake up early, have coffee, and read the [physical] paper
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Prescott Perez-Fox is a graphic designer, brand developer, and educator with 18+ years experience in branding, packaging, graphic design, and web design. He runs The Busy Creator.
