Meet Jeff Gaydash | Fine Art Photographer & Printmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeff Gaydash and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeff, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
As an aspiring artist/photographer one must have an entrepreneurial spirit in order to pursue their creative endeavors, while also making a living. Just out of art school I partnered with a colleague in starting a commercial photography and digital imaging studio. As art students, we had zero business experience but we were hungry to succeed. It was quite the learning experience having to wear the many hats of running a successful business.

A few years later I took a job at an ad agency but continued to pursue freelance work on the side and set up an LLC. Having a consistent means of income from my agency job, I made a conscious decision to move away from commercial freelance work to pursue my true love of fine art photography and high end B&W photographic printing.

This was during the early days of social media and photo sharing platforms like Flickr allowed me to quickly gain a global audience within the niche segment of B&W long exposure landscapes. Photography had become mostly digital by this point and I had adopted a highly customized B&W specific digital inkjet printing system called Piezography for my own work. This caught the attention of my followers and I started offering to make prints for others as a service. This was the genesis of my journey into running a fine art print studio.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
First and foremost, I’ve found that success comes down to being passionate about what you do. Passion is the fuel that keeps you going, even when things get difficult.

As an artist, I’ve found the creative process to be very frustrating at times. Persistence is key. Half the battle is continuing to stay focused. It takes years for an artist to develop their own aesthetic and that can only be achieved by pushing forward and continuing to create even when there may be a lack of inspiration.

It’s important to not become stagnant, most especially in areas of technology where things are changing so rapidly. Continuing to learn new skills and adopt new processes is paramount to continued success.

I’ve also come to realize the importance of believing in yourself and recognizing the value of what you are doing. We tend to be our own worst critics and often underestimate ourselves. Don’t sell yourself short and always think big!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’ve lived in the city but these days I prefer getting away and exploring what the rest of our great state has to offer. Michigan has more shoreline than the entire eastern seaboard and I enjoy driving along the coastlines looking for photographic opportunities and checking out small towns along the way. Maybe grab a bite to eat at a local brewery or restaurant in a small town like Glen Arbor, Leland, Suttons Bay, or Frankfort and then check out some local galleries and shops.

I’m really into mountain biking and Michigan has some awesome trails. In the last few years I’ve fallen in love with the upper peninsula. Marquette is a great town. Camping at Rippling River, mountain biking the Noquemanon Trails, hiking Hogback Mountain, jumping off Black Rocks and then hitting a local restaurant in town make for en epic day! I try to get up there when I can and am really looking forward to exploring more of what the upper peninsula has to offer.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I first fell in love with photography in high school. There was something so incredibly magical watching your photograph appear in the darkroom chemicals for the first time. I was hooked!

But it wasn’t until I was in art school that I really began to appreciate the beauty of a fine art photographic print. There were two professors in particular who further cultivated my passion for the medium, Carlos Diaz and Bill Rauhauser. Carlos introduced me to the general concepts and skills necessary in the darkroom to achieve better prints, while also fundamentally developing my appreciation for photography as an art form. Bill Rauhauser took things even deeper in his photographic sensitometry class where I learned how to fully control the photographic medium via precise exposure and development techniques. Bill also taught the history of photography which is where I developed a great appreciation for the early masters of the photographic medium. The works of Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Minor White and many others were all influential, however the platinum prints of Frederick Evans and contemporary photographer Kenro Izu were the most awe inspiring, planting the seeds of a life long obsession in making beautiful art objects.

Website: https://www.jeffgaydash.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffgaydash/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-gaydash-06a05449/

Image Credits
All Images Copyright 2024 – Jeff Gaydash Studios, LLC.