Intro Part 1

Just a quickie to introduce myself & let you know who I am.

 

Alrighty. My name is Brad Walter Gremba (you'll see that I use my middle name/initial a lot simply because I'm proud of it, being my father's name & all) but you can just call me Brad. Online in community's & forums you'll usually see me as MagikTrik (don't ask because I don't remember) and occasionally now, BGremba. I am a 25 year old (08/07/1983) semi-pro photographer born & raised in the Pittsburgh, PA area. My main area of "interest" would definitely be photojournalism & documentary type photography. I just feel like it's in my blood, like it's what I am supposed to be doing. That said though, I am truly & honestly interested in ALL areas of photography from product/advertisement to wedding photography to fashion & editorial work because everything has its own set of interesting interesting challenges & rewards. This makes things kind of difficult though because I haven't spent enough time "specializing" to really build up a worthy portfolio (worthy to me, anyway) in any one area. That said though, as of right now I'm available to shoot anything from events & parties to commercial work (in case you're interested).

I have real-world experience in most of the area's I'm offering my services in. I have shot for an interior design store called "The Cob Collection" photographing interiors & their advertisement's, I've done senior portraits, birthday's & other parties, junior sports and of course many different types of artistic portrait work. Plus if I'm asked to do a job I've never done before a price can be worked out that reflects my inexperience.

I don't consider myself someone who takes pictures or a hobbyist or a "weekend warrior". Photography isn't something I like or something I just do, it's who I am. I never stop taking pictures all day long, whether I have a camera or not (and it's extremely rare that I don't have at least one), it's just something I have to do in order to keep my sanity. It's like how some folks just "have to" get that first cup of coffee in the morning to feel normal, I "have to" make pictures to feel normal. Many people "have to" get at least 6 hours of sleep a night or they can't function properly during the day, if I don't get some shots in at some point it kind of screws up my internal system for the rest of the day. As I've said, it's just in my blood. The best way I've ever found to describe it is this. "When I hold that camera up to my eye everything else goes away, like the whole entire world only consists of what I can see through my viewfinder & nothing else exists." There is no girlfriend problems, no money problems, I don't worry about my education (or lack thereof), I can't remember the one that broke my heart, there is nothing bad in my life, nothing bad in my whole world. It's just me & that image I'm trying to capture and as anyone who has seen me work can tell you, I quite frequently trip over things & bump into people because I'm so wrapped up in what I am doing.

One of the things that usually works against me when applying for jobs but usually works for me when photographing is, I am entirely "self-taught". Let me first state that of course I have absolutely nothing against a fromal education & I would even go as far as to give one of my limbs to get into school in Kentucky or Florida or another top photojournalism school so I am definitely not against it. I did attend the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for about 5 weeks but it just wasn't for me. I can't settle myself down enough to sit beside the rich kids who don't give a damn about photography is or what it means, they just looked through a book when Mommy & Daddy said "it's time to go to school" & picked something that they thought looked "cool". I can't give up 2 WHOLE WEEKS of my education just so everyone can learn to turn their camera's on & change the settings. As I've probably "overstated" already, photography isn't a game to me, it is something I am extremely, painfully, passionate about. It is the only thing I truly love, it makes me who I am. Now I could care less if you don't like photography, that's cool. I don't think golf is a sport. It's what makes the world "go round". Where the problem lies is when people don't take it seriously yet think they can do what Cappa or Nachtwey or Liebovitz or Adams (both Eddie & Ansel) can do just because Mommy & Daddy went out & bought them the latest, greatest digital ubermegapixel, 1 billion frames-per-second camera. These people bother me. The way I am, the way I've lived my life I just don't blend in real well with the snobby, spoiled, the-world-should-thank-me types & unfortunately that is what my class was filled with. I actually even got a half dozen phone numbers from the girls there but not because I'm just that good looking, it was because they were all the same & apparently all rich girls like the grungy "bad boy" types (which unbeknownst to me, I resemble) but even this bothered me. Now please don't take this the wrong way, I have a feeling I'm not explaining myself properly. I have no problem with people of a higher social class than myself, I have nothing against people that have been handed everything, honestly I don't. I mean, that's great if you were lucky enough to never have to work, I envy the feeling of always being comfortable, knowing everything is still going to be ok tomorrow because most of us will never have that feeling. The thing I hate though is when those people act like their better than me (granted most of them probably are but that's beside the point). Wait... what was my point? I know I had one originally but I seem to have forgotten it now.

Part 2 coming soon...