Shmuel has had one-person shows at the Cabrillo Gallery, the Michelangelo Gallery, the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion Museum in New York City and the Pacific Grove Art Center. His work has been included in group shows at the Museum of Art and History, the Pajaro Valley Arts Council and the Monterey Museum of Art.
Shmuel has been honored three times with awards in the prestigious National Press Photographers Association Best of Photojournalism contest, most recently in 2015, and he has garnered a first or second place award in the San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association, the California Newspaper Publishers Association or the Associated Press News Executive Council contests in each of the past 15 years. Additionally, Shmuel was recognized with an Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 by the Aptos, California Chamber of Commerce to recognize the contribution his photography has had in the community. For his work in 2014 Shmuel was awarded second place POY (Photographer of the Year) for the National Press Photographers Association’s Region 10, which covers all photojournalists in California, Arizona and Nevada.
Shmuel has co-authored 5 children’s books and his photographs illustrate numerous books including his collaboration with George Levenson on ‘Bread Comes to Life’ and the classic ‘Pumpkin Circle’, which has more than 120,000 copies in print and is held by every major library system in the country.
A graduate of the film school at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Shmuel has lived in Santa Cruz, California since 1982.
