My Work
My Bio
A Pulitzer-Prize winner and National Geographic Photographer, Jay’s career has spanned a multitude of experiences, including three months living in a stone-age village in Papua New Guinea, a week under the Arctic ice in a nuclear attack sub (both these for a National Geographic), and aboard a sinking boat on the Amazon. With more than twenty-five assignments for National Geographic Society, Jay has taught workshops for Santa Fe Workshops, the Maine Media Workshops, Photography at the Summit and American Photo Mentor Series. Jay and his wife Becky, are founders of the FirstLight Workshop series, having hosted workshops in Italy, Spain, Scotland, France, the Chesapeake and Wyoming.
Working with National Geographic Expeditions, Jay has been on more than 50 trips as the “National Geographic Expert”. These have included several of the “Around the World by Private Jet” Expeditions, Central & South America by Private Jet, trips to Svalbard and the High Artic, Cape Norway, British Isles, Dalmatian Coast, the West Coast of Africa along with multiple trips to South Georgia, Falklands, Antarctica, Baja and Galapagos Islands.
Jay has led the National Geographic “Wyoming’s Cowboy Country” Photography Workshop since its inception in 2013. His input and design for the workshop was critical to its success. Jay continues to offer this workshop under his FirstLight workshop brand. In addition to the CM Ranch Workshop in 2019, FirstLight is also offering a photo expedition built around the Pushkar Camel Festival in India, October 30th – November 9th2019.
As a workshop pro, Jay is an Olympus Visionary, a Singh-Ray Ambassador, a Lexar Elite Photographer and an HP Prestigious Photographer, using the latest technology from these companies for backup and storage, Jay uses state of the art equipment from CRU-Dataport.
Where’s Jay, which is Jay’s blog (see blog link below), was recently honored as one of the 47 best photo blogs in the world by PhotoBlog.com. Jay was also listed by Travel + Leisure as one of the “10 fascinating people you can travel with, in 2017”.Jay is also co-author of the best-selling book, “Perfect Digital Photography”, published by McGraw-Hill. As well as numerous articles for National Geographic, Life, Sports Illustrated, Time and Forbes.
