BLACKRAPID Spotlight Jay Watson

Jay Watson Photography – Lifestyle, Automotive, Editorial, Corporate

I am a San Francisco Bay Area-based commercial photographer with 25 years of experience. Some of my clients include Bicycling Magazine, Nikon USA, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, and Wired (UK). I’m originally from Baltimore, Maryland. If I were not a photographer, my dream job would be to come off the bench as a sixth man for the New York Knicks.

BLACKRAPID Spotlight Jay Watson 2 — Athletic Apparel | Urthwear

Do You Have a Good Photography Tip for Us?

Put job notes into the calendar app on your phone for each shoot day. A producer once showed me this trick, and it’s the best way to stay organized. If I’m on location, I can quickly pull up shot lists, links, attachments, location addresses, contacts, schedule, and deliverables for each job.

As info changes, I update it in the calendar so it’s all in one place. No need to scroll through countless emails while on set. Larger files go into a Dropbox job folder, but the crucial stuff is in the calendar. It also becomes a searchable archive I can refer to when needed.

BLACKRAPID Spotlight Jay Watson 3 — Self-Driving Kenworth | Embark Trucks

Some War Stories With Shooting Film

I’ve always loved the mechanical experience and nostalgia when shooting film. It’s magical. And while costs and shipping are a bummer, I would definitely shoot film more often if it weren’t for my aversion to color correcting film, scanning negatives, and the potential disasters that can occur.

I’ve had entire rolls of film ruined by heat, incorrectly processed by labs, scratched from roller transport machines, bent or folded by dip-and-dunk machines, and important rolls lost by clients. One particularly disturbing incident occurred when I walked into a lab and found my naked film draped across the counter without any sleeves. To make matters worse, the front door was wide open, the wind was blowing, and there was no one behind the counter! Needless to say, I never used that lab again.