We were lucky to catch up with Gregory Parries recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gregory , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Well it took a lot of trail and error, when I first started shooting I was so turned off by the post processing of photos yet, yet at the same time i was also put off by the cost of film ( now that I think about it I don’t think I have ever shot on film other than maybe a polaroid camera when i was a kid). Knowing what I know now i wish I would have taken the time to learn more about photo shop and light room when i started shooting, Im sure i threw away a lot of good photos that could have been fixed pretty easy with post processing, but when I started if it wasn’t good right out of the camera it went into the trash, but in high sight this taught me how to compose a photo really well and how not to rely on photoshop to fix a bad shot.

Gregory , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I actually started filming before i started taking photos, (I had a flip camera with a fisheye lens glued to it) I was on such i tight budget. One year my dad bought me a Sony nex-3 mirrorless camera and that was the end of that down the rabbit hole I went, I would shoot video and photos of everything i could, but my real passion was skateboarding. At the time I was working at a small skate park in Savannah Ga called Woodys I worked there for around 6 years and every week i would post all the photos and video i could, we had a weekly youtube video i would put out called The Daily Grind (this was before instagram). I don’t think i missed a week until about the 5th year or so i was there i was invested fully in that! I kept shooting after the park but sort of shifted focus to photography more so than video. Ive always looked at skateboarding as kind of portraits in motion you see just like in portrait photography theres the shots, the poses you want to capture, in skateboarding photography you want to capture the full story of the trick, the persons face and kind of tell the full story of whats going on that way the photo explains the moment. so skateboarding photography is high speed portraits! Fast forward a few years and an ankle injury sort of put me out of being able to skateboard and shoot that for a months and i became fascinated in shooting birds on my bird feeder ( since it didn’t involve me moving around a lot). so i found yet another outlet in photography that i enjoy. I get asked quite a bit whats harder shooting skateboarding or birds and the answer is always birds! Birding is so much more fast paced and way more unpredictable, ill go on a birding shoot and have a shot of a particular bird in mind and when i get to the field or lake i want to shoot that bird is absolutely no where to be found, or even worse theres no birds in sight. So birding keeps me a little more on my toes and it sort of hones my skills i have to stay fast and be able to set up the camera and shoot on a moments notice.
so yeah skateboarding and birds and everything in between!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I started out like i mentioned before with the most budget gear i could afford and i just worked with what i could, even now i definitely research lenses and gear for months before i pull the trigger to buy them and i defiantly make sure the gear will pay fore its self in a few shoots. thats really the best advice i always share with aspiring photographers that want to make some sort of living out of photography. buy what you can afford make it work and before you upgrade reserech and make sure what you want to buy is going to cover its own cost!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Be yourself! 100% authenticity cant be faked it cant be bought and you own it. develop your own style of shooting editing and tell your clients friends or who ever your shooting exactly what your intent is. don’t under cut your prices don’t be fake and talk to everyone you can. another great story thats the best proof of this, I was shooting some photo coverage of this art/skate even here in Savannah and there happen to be a few representatives for some skate industry companies at the event, i talked with them just like i would with anyone like real people, next thing you know im shooting an event in California with professional skateboarders then shooting the Tampa pro contest but above all of that i made a few life long friends from just being authentic and that is priceless! its about the connections we make in life not about the money in our bank account.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @parriesphoto
• Facebook: parriesphotography

Image Credits
first Photo of me photo credit Valentin Sivyakov photo of me taking a photo Dan Sinclair