PETER GRAD, born and raised in the Bronx, has been a resident of Ridgewood for 19 years.
Peter had a 40-year career in journalism, the first four years as a reporter and editor at his hometown paper, The Co-op City Times, and then for four years as an editor at The (Meriden, Conn.) Record-Journal. His next stop was The Record (Hackensack, NJ) where he remained 32 years until retirement. At The Record, he was a copy editor and soon was tapped to head up a 14-person operation on a new weekly entertainment and local news section, “Community.” He wore multiple hats, writing tech columns, including “The Computer Tutor” and “The PC Guy” over nearly two decades, while handling other newsroom editing assignments. His last official position — as The Record’s Op-Ed Page editor — lasted 18 years.
Following retirement, Peter was able to tackle his photography hobby full-time.
Peter’s primary interest is capturing the bold hues of fall foliage, lush landscapes and water reflections. He shoots with a Nikon D810 (earlier he used a Sony Alpha 77) using RAW format digital processing, which he says uniquely provides a photographer with the ability to select numerous lighting configurations after the shot is taken. He achieves his signature robust color and textures in post-processing primarily with Adobe Lightroom.
Peter does much of his shooting in Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Central Park, the New York Botanical Garden, Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, and Boston. The works in this collection are a reflection of hundreds taken over the past 18 years.
Since September 2017, Peter’s works have been exhibited in a dozen libraries throughout Bergen and Passaic counties: Paramus, Haworth, Fort Lee, Hawthorne, Cresskill, Totowa, Wayne, Westwood, Glen Rock, Tenafly, Ridgewood and Teaneck. He is slated for exhibitions in Montclair and Fair Lawn in 2019.
He is currently holding his second exhibition at the Totowa Library where he is booked for May and June 2019.