Bio
Jeremiah Chechik was born in Montreal, Canada in the fifties and grew up surrounded by books, home made radios and every issue of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science.
He got himself a scholarship to McGill University in physics but at the last moment shifted his major to the arts. He was active in the anti-war movement and filmed documentaries on the Black Panthers.
He directed plays, studied with John Grierson, the father of the documentary film and later became his assistant. After graduating, he moved to Toronto, worked as a master printmaker for the rare books library at University of Toronto, experimented with coupling the photographic processes to stone lithography and helped start a gallery (A-Space).
He received Canada Council Grants, had many solo shows and became one of the first artists to work in laser holography. His success as a fine artist brought him to the attention of advertising agencies and fashion magazines and before long he moved to Milan and began a career as a fashion photographer for Italian Vogue.
Jeremiah photographed editorial for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar as well as fashion and beauty campaigns worldwide eventually bringing him back to Canada to begin his evolution into film as he continued to work in photography but without exhibiting.
Soon he moved to New York and began a meteoric rise as a director of groundbreaking and award winning commercials. Even as he worked in commercial filmmaking he kept a focus on writing, science and design and above all, photography as his principal, personal medium of expression as an artist.
His commercials caught the eye of Stanley Kubrick, was courted by Spielberg and found himself living in Los Angeles with an office at Universal. He is well known for directing six motion pictures including Christmas Vacation and Benny and Joon, as well as the epic miniseries The Bronx is Burning. He has directed pilots, as well as multiple episodes of television in every genre and has been nominated several times for his directing work by the DGA.
His name is on multiple patents, having pioneered streaming video on the internet. Jeremiah has consulted for Nokia and BMW, lectured at Anneberg School of Communications, USC Film School , UCLA and is on the staff of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
All the while his photographic work evolved technically and aesthetically as he explored new ways of creating and presenting imagery that in his words “moved the conversation and language of the photographic image forward”.
His photographic work spans 40 years as he continues to innovate both technically and aesthetically, challenging the nature of how we define a photograph today. He resides in Venice California
https://linktr.ee/tinroof_studios