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News and Events

I have been going to Cape Cod once, twice sometimes three times a year since I was 3 or 4 years old. For most of that time, actually up until this year, we have rented the same set of cottages on the beach in North Truro. Over this amount of time, I have watched a beach, a town and even science change by the ocean. I remember as a kid taking a flattened cardboard box and going to the dunes in P-town and sliding down them as if it was a snowy hill. Dune buggy tours used to go through the dunes as well until they slowly closed off due to erosion. Basically, the beach grass was being killed from people walking on it or the buggies driving on them. The beach grass, they found, was what keep the water and wind from blowing and washing the sand into the ocean. Kind of an important role being that the lower Cape is all sand.

The amount of stores, restaurants and galleries on Commercial Street in P-town  grew exponentially in the time the I first walked the street, with only 2 or 3 stores still remaining from when I was a kid. But what keeps me going back is not the amazing food, the landscape or the light. What I find most amazing is that after all these years is that what ever beach I go to on the first day that I am on Cape or even my first walk to the beach in the morning, I do not know what I am going to see. One year there are sand flats at low tide, the next they are gone. One morning the fog is so thick you can’t see next to you and the next is so clear  you can see into  50 miles into Plymouth. I love walking to the water at 6 am and seeing what the tide brought in from the night before: Skate egg cases, dead bluefish, trapped skates in a pond of water waiting for the tide to come in a set them free. One morning we came across an entire beach of a dead squid. Head over to the ocean side and see whales clearing their lungs on the horizon or schools of feeding blue fish 2 feet from shore.

This year was no different. We walked about mile east at Head of the Meadow beach to see a thousand  Grey Seals resting on two sand bars just off the shore. With the fog and few people around, it seemed that we were transformed to a land thousands of miles away. The sound of the ocean and the bark of all the seals at once felt like you were watching  National Geographic in real time.  What ever was happening in the world at that moment became meaningless. I was watching nature. As we headed back, all I could think of was how was Cape Cod going to top this next year?

What does this have to do with my  photography? Well, everything. Most of my personal photography projects either began, was influenced by or ended with images from the Cape. Sky/Sea was conceived even before I owned a camera. The light, the landscape and quite simply, the feeling I get when I am there is awe inspiring.  The geographical and the cultural history is amazing in itself. Writers, Artist and Actors from Thoreau to Hopper, Mailer to Motherwell all have not only spent time but created many works of art here!

Now that I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old, the contents of my packed car for the trip up to the Cape has changed. Cameras, tripods, boxes of film have been replaced with toys, car seats and diapers. I can no longer spend  sunrise to breakfast time and late afternoon to sunset walking the Cape with my 4 tons of equipment photographing what I see. Nor can I spend the entire day on the beach watching the water, starring at the horizon and thinking about whatever. But in a way, something more important is happening. I hope that the sense of awe that I have for lower Cape Cod, starting with my first trip when I was 3 or 4 will be passed on to my kids. Having them see seals and humpback whales in the wild will hopefully impact their view of  nature and the environment the way it has for me. Whether its the sand bars, the beached squid or the whales, one minute its here and the next it can be  gone; its fragile. Passing this along to them is more important and longer lasting than a photograph the I miss because of them!

Back in the day, when Time Out New York just started out, I used to photograph for them a few time a month. One of the assignments that I had was to photograph new restaurants that were opening in the city to accompany a review. So I got to go around NYC and photograph the chef, their food and then have a great meal for FREE.  Some restaurants survived, others didn’t. But I did and I got to meet and photograph some of the great chefs we know today such as Mario Batali, Jean George and Lidia Bastianich.

I also had to shoot a few photo illustrations that were a bit more loose. One of my favorites was a piece entitled, EYES ON THE FRIES. My brother, Ian Saladyga, played the role as the EYES:

Well a few weeks ago, I had to dig out my bag of  food photography skills and photograph a menu for a new restaurant that is opening in Washington DC called Banh-Mi. The shoot took place in NYC at the owners amazing apartment in the lower east side.  We shot about 25 different dishes and individual plates, and just like back in the day, I got to eat some amazing food! If you never had a Vietnamese sandwich, they made the best that I have tasted. Below are a few of the pics.

As soon as the restaurant opens I will post it on my Facebook and Twitter sites. Oh and the designer of the site is Mary Toraddo. I can’t wait to see it!

I am excited to announce that one of my photographs has been selected to be part of a group exhibition at the Silvermine  Art Center. The title of the show is “Crossroads.” Here is an except from the prospectus for the show: “As a metaphor, ” to be at a crossroads,” refers to any turning point with an unpredictable outcome (the literal meaning of a crisis).”

The photograph of mine that is in the show is entitled “Caos” 2010 and is part of an ongoing project titled “Balance.”

With the world’s attention on the human impact on the earth, is it not relevant to directly include the human form in  contemporary landscape photography? If the earth’s ultimate survival now relies on human intervention to prevent it from becoming a lifeless world, shouldn’t today’s artist reflect that thought? This image is part of a series that attempts to answer these questions. We are now at a “Crossroads or a tipping point, were if we do not begin to change what we are doing, their may be no turning back. This photograph represents this point. How much energy does it take to move, keep warm or simply to communicate?

Dr. Tracy Fitzpatrick was invited to be the guest juror for this show. She is a curator at the Neuberger Museum of Art and an assistant professor in art history in the undergraduate program  and the Masters Degree Program in Modern and Contemporary Art, Criticism and Theory at Purchase College.

The opening reception is Sunday July 31, 2011 from 2pm to 4pm at the Silvermine Guild Gallery.

I hope to see you there!

Jeremy

Last week, I was photographing a 60th Surprise B’day party in an amazing apartment in the city. After the big surprise, the guest were to head up the stairs to a wrap around deck about 50 flights up in the air for diner. Just before the party was to begin, while I was shooting some decor photographs on the deck, we noticed a rainstorm over NJ which looked like it was heading north.

After assuring the event planner, Gallia Batt of Food Design, that it looked like the storm was heading north, I finished photographing the decor and  headed inside to photograph the guest arriving. About 30 minutes into the party, the beautiful view outside the window disappeared into white oblivion and torrential rain came down. Needless to say the outside party was not going to happen.

After the big surprise, I noticed out that same window that a rainbow was in the sky. From that point of view, it looked like an everyday nice rainbow that you see a few times a year. Even though I thought it was not spectacular, I headed back to the deck to take a photo for the clients. Once up there my jaw dropped. It was a full rainbow, I mean a double rainbow, start to finish over Queens. It did not look real! The photo below says it all: