Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Coy.
Jay, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My whole life I’ve been involved with some sort of arts. Throughout my whole childhood I was a marching member of the drum and bugle corps activity. Once I aged out of the activity, I began teaching local marching bands, winter percussion groups, and a drum and bugle corps. When I stopped teaching in 2012 I was left with no art or creative outlet. I knew something was missing. I dabbled with ideas like pottery and jewelry making, but nothing really stuck. In 2016, when I was planning my wedding/honeymoon to Hawaii, I decided to get a camera so I could capture how gorgeous Hawaii is. Luckily, my friend Ben (@benjaminboynton) is an amazing photographer and was nice enough to give me my first lessons to get me on my way. Over that next year I concentrated on landscape photography but felt like something was missing. In June of 2017, on my birthday actually, I decided to give portrait photography a try at a Photowalk hosted by Icy Li (@snaps_by_icy). I had such an amazing time working with models and other photographers so I decided to shift my focus to portraits. However, I wanted to do something different than just beauty portraits, I wanted to create stories, I planned a “Mother Earth” concept shoot for September of 2017. Michal Mangan (@michal.mangan) was my model and I had an incredible team of a stylist (@valerie.mangan) and HMUAs (@sabrinarosestyles & @stylebyseanna). My wife Erika also played a huge role with her unwavering support of all my projects. That shoot was so amazing! There was months of planning, location scouting, and wardrobe prep that went into it and it all payed off, I even started crying when I took “THE” shot which I’ll include in this article. Looked at the back of my camera and literally started crying at how beautiful it was, From there, I discovered a Brooke Shaden (@brookeshaden) tutorial about Fine Art photography and I’ve been hooked ever since!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road at all. I’m a full-time Civil engineer and I’ve never considered myself to be creative but more technical based. I’ve always just taken direction when it came to music and such. So the creative side of my brain is just starting to be exercised and it’s a constant struggle. Coming up with concepts and what the final images should look like are very tough. Sometimes they just come to me, thankfully, but other times I just have a constant block. I think with time, the more and more I create, the easier it will become. I hope so anyways. Another struggle for me is that I usually like to convey an emotion or feeling in my images. Trying to convert a feeling to an image is certainly challenging but very rewarding once it’s pulled off!
Jay Coy Photography – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
So as previously stated, I primarily focus on Fine Art Conceptual Photography. This consists of telling a story with usually a single image but sometimes a series, I use Photoshop to edit and composite images to create a surreal painterly image. This is what I want to be known for and what I believe sets me apart from a lot of photographers in the Boston area. I love creating these images and love the feedback I get from them. I also do shoot engagements and weddings, family portraits, maternity portraits, and the occasional landscape or astrophotography image.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment for my photography career so far would have to be completing the Mother Earth shoot and seeing how incredible the series came together. After stressing over it and wondering if I was going to be able to execute it with being how new I was, it was such a huge relief and I’m extremely proud of it!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jaycoyphotography.com
- Email: jaycoyphotography@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jaycoyphoto
Image Credit:
Models: Michal Mangan (@michal.mangan), Kassandra Hostage (@khostage), Lexi Deleo (@lexideleo), Ashley Lynn (@ashboud)
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