Meet TOM GRILL | art photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with TOM GRILL and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi TOM, how does your business help the community?
As a photography artist, I spend my time photographing places on the earth that are filled with beauty but often in need of help in order to survive the ecological turmoil that is going on in our world today. I photograph places, like the Everglades, in the hope of drawing attention to them and their need of our help in order to survive. My photographs are often shown in exhibits that benefit the Everglades and put forth a theme encouraging us to help overcome the ecological crisis in the world today.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My career began and developed as a photographer within the commercial world of New York advertising photography during the crazy era of Madison Avenue, or “Mad Ave”, as we referred to it. The time was hectic; it was fast-paced; and it gave free rein to creative spirits. It was the cacophony of creativity that gave artists, like Andy Warhol a creative jolt and a fast track to success.

It was a time when technology was changing fast. Cameras developed from simple mechanical instruments to more sophisticated machines that could not only “take a picture”, but could begin to capture the speed of the fast-paced world. Motor drives, auto-focus, auto-exposure by built-in light meters — as cameras became easier and faster to use. Capture speed became an important element in the creative, picture-taking process. At the beginning of the 21st century, the process of capturing an image moved into warp speed as cameras traded in roll film for digital capture.

I lived through this process. My creative style of photography came to depend upon this new speed of capture. No longer were we limited to 36 photos on a roll of film. Now we could now capture hundreds — no, thousands — or images on a digital drive. And we could capture images at lightning speed with the camera working to keep up with our creative thought processes. Nothing escaped our speed of capture.

As an artist, I began to utilize this actual ease and speed of capture to develop a new style of picture-taking. Instead of approaching a subject with the goal of capturing one image that tells the entire story of the event, I began to move around and through my subject capturing different aspects of it, then later assembling several of the images into one final work that told a more complete story. I wasn’t the first artist to think this way. This is what the Cubist painters did when they gathered multiple views of the same scene and combined them to give the viewer a more complete picture of the scene from different angles. Their process also introduced the role that time itself plays within the visual creative process. As visual artists, we were no longer simply capturing one moment in time. Rather, we could capture the scene as a developing event at different times.

This changed my style as a creative visual artist. I no longer approach my subject looking for that “one” perfect moment. Rather, I move through it capturing hundreds of variations of the scene which I manipulate later into one work. I refer to this process as “image architecture”. I take my scene apart, looking for individual defining elements. Later I piece together these elements to form a new image that gives more of the feeling of the scene experienced as an event over time. The parts are assembled to create a new whole and a new way of looking at the original experience of the scene.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Before moving to Florida, I spent a lot of my time traveling to places, like the American West, to photograph. The western terrain had a visual drama to it — awe-inspiring mountains, canyons, gigantic trees, and deserts. These were places where a photographer couldn’t miss a shot. Point your camera in any direction and shoot. At first glance, Florida seemed to have none of this natural drama. It took me a while to discover that the same drama was here in Florida, but it didn’t need the obvious drama of sculpted Nature. The drama of Nature in Florida was in the weather — the water that surrounds it, the dramatic flora and fauna, and the skies, winds, and clouds overhead. This was Florida’s Nature and this is where I turned to find a creative subject for my photography. This is where I encourage people to do their sightseeing. There is as much drama in a powerful Florida cumulus cloud as I have found in the western mountain ranges of America.

A place where the Nature of Florida comes together in an inspirational way is the Everglades. I would encourage visitors to spend some time exploring the Everglades. It is one of the few places left on earth where we can experience the true grandeur and importance of Nature in our lives. I spend a lot of time photographing in the Everglades trying to capture the importance of its place in our world, and to learn from the experience that we are its guardians and are charged with the responsibility of preserving it.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I am an artist. Artists generally rely on the influence of other artists. Having spent most of my artistic life in New York City, I practically lived in the great art museums of that city. I would like to give a shoutout to the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum, the Frick Collection, the Whitney, and others that allowed me to reach back in time and study firsthand the progress of the visual arts through the ages. Attending those museums and others was the most significant educational experience I could have had as an artist.

Website: https://www.tomgrill.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomgrill/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tom.grill.75