Jay Daniel
Photographer and Digital Printer
Jay Daniel, born in Phoenix, Arizona, grew up in San Anselmo, California just north of the Golden Gate. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley where he secured a degree in Bacteriology, and went on to graduate study of Public Health there. While later employed in the Clinical Lab of Pacific Presbyterian Hospital, San Francisco, he began less formal photography studies in Marin County after a lifetime interest. Taking classes that interested him in Art & Photography at SF State, San Francisco Art Institute, Academy of Art, College of Marin, and The Darkroom, he decided this was the direction he wanted to follow. Working casually in the field at first and assisting other experienced photographers in SF & NYC at first, he opened his first studio, Jay Daniel Associates, in Fairfax in 1980. He had his first magazine cover published for Wooden Boat magazine soon thereafter and was hooked.
For 20 years Jay Daniel Associates provided in-house photographic services, commercial and freelance work for such clients as Apple Computer, The Oakland Athletics, Collins Harper, The Sierra Club, Fireman’s Fund, Autodesk, Fair Isaac, Oaksprings Impressions, and Sunset Magazine. He was on the faculty at the University of California Extension, Berkeley and the Academy of Art, San Francisco teaching art direction. He has given seminars on photographic lighting, the business of photography, marketing art, and digital skills for artists.
After over 30 years in the industry, Jay is currently president of Black Cat Studio in Novato, California where he is the principal photographer, while the studio also provides pre-press and large format, pigmented inkjet digital printing for art and corporate clients.
Jay works with many aspiring and successful artists, galleries and collectors, digitally documenting and printing their work. He believes that success comes from an accurate and literal interpretation of the original, and that all the technology that he operates in the background should be seamless, and unnoticeable to the clients. He spends his time outside of work with his family, wife Barbara, and 2 boys in school , Lucas and Jace, as well as riding his road bicycle long distances (50 to 100 miles) each weekend in Sonoma County (the most beautiful place in the world!).
