Shelby Grimnes Interview

Shelby came into my field of vision as I began to explore more skating groups on flickr. Her talent is immediately apparent. This is the 3rd installment of photographer spotlights and you know what they say..."the 3rd times the charm." Ummm that kind of sounds bad and Ryan and Ben if your watching you guys kick ass but you will admit Shelby has a certain something going on. Enough of my chatter on with the interview and photo gallery.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shelbygrimnes/

Christian


C: Name and occupation
S: Shelby Grimnes….Photographer, and I work on leads for my dad’s business


C: How did you get started with photography?
S: It was my freshman year in high school and I always took my mom’s point and shoot to the skatepark so my parents decided to get me my own camera for Christmas, they got me a Canon Rebel XT, and it just took off from there.


C: Talk to me a little about your interest in skating photography.
S: Skateboarding photography is what got me interested in photography, I started skating in 6th grade and since my Dad works for a Magazine subscriptions service I got a bunch of free skateboarding magazines from Transworld, Skateboarder, Slap (RIP) and Thrasher, I never read the articles in them, just looked at the photos, I just loved the look of the photos, they really caught my eye. But another thing that sparked my interest was my friends Dane and Derek, two photographers from my local park, I’d look at their photos on Flickr and they always got me hyped and got me to start taking photos. Skateboarding photography is what I shoot the most, I love it, it’s awesome, and I always have fun going out with everyone and shooting photos. I also shoot lifestyles or portraits what you want to call them and I like to go take night time photos once and awhile.


C: I see that you have had some published work, did that just happen or did you have to go out and make it happen?
S: Some of it just happened, a local Arizona skate magazine called AZ Steez ran a couple of photos they got from my flickr, so I just started sending them stuff and they ran it and then they asked me to do a photo feature for one of the issues, and the issue with my photo feature just came out. But the others I had to make it happen, I just send a lot of photos to different magazines and some of them run my photos and some don’t because they don’t have any where to place them or they just didn’t like the photos I guess.


C: How big is the skating scene in and around where you live?
S: The skating scene is HUGE in Arizona, it’s one of the biggest in the world I would say. We have a lot of good spots that no one else really has and we have perfect weather 8 months out of the year and I guess our skateparks are good to. AZ has a lot of good skateboarding photographers to, like Matt Price and Ty Bush just to name a few.


C: Do you have a set group of guys you shoot with or is it who ever is ripping spot x that day?
S: It was like that for awhile, I only shot with a few people. But once I started shooting photos with the UBF guys I started meeting more and more skaters and started shooting photos of them so now I shoot photos with a lot of different people, but I have that group of friends that I shoot photos with all the time.


C: Are you self taught or do you have schooling?
S: I was self taught most of the time, I didn’t really take a photo class until I knew what I was doing so it was more like a review. I did get help from a few friends but that was it.


C: Being a female shooter good, not good, or kinda what ever?
S: Its cools, I don’t really see a difference between me and a dude shooting photos.


C: How heavy is your post process procedure? And what do you use?
S: Since I shoot digital, I just upload the photo to photoshop, and edited it on CS3, then if I’m not going to send it to any magazines or if the photo isn’t being used for any AD’s then I’ll usually upload it my flickr.


C: Do you skate?
S: Yeah I shred


C: Dream photo gig?
S: Being a staff photographer for a skateboarding magazine or company.


C: Thanks for taking time to field my questions...any shout outs or folks you want to give thanks to?
S: No problem. I’d like to thank Dane Federer and Derek Bixler for helping me out when I first started shooting photos. Stephen Denton for taking sick photos that inspire me to keep shooting photos. Lisa at UBF for giving me a chance to shoot photos for her shop. Andrew Crawford for bugging me to shoot photos of him because if I didn’t I’d never be friends with any one at UBF and defiantly wouldn’t be shooting with the people I do now. Jesus for being awesome and saving me from the death I deserve and giving me the gift of photography, without him I’d would be nothing. Shout out’s to Zac Archuleta, Chris Weigele, Anthony Carney, Rick Weigele and all the KKSM crew for being awesome friends. All my friends from Pecos and Matt Benally, Derrick Lines, Eric Dutton, Caleb Schrank, Andrew Crawford, Eric Hill and anyone else I could of missed.