Hello! 👋🏻 I'm Ian Gramly. I'm a photographer based in the Hills district of Western Sydney.
My photography journey began in 2009 when I went on a trip with some family friends to a remote mountain in Arizona. One of them had loaned me a professional (DSLR) camera, and it was my first time using something like that. We were out for most of the day and I was busy shooting every single image three times to make sure I had the right exposure. On the way back down, toward the end of the day, we saw a street sign warning of bears, and my friend said that despite that, he had never seen any on his numerous trips there. Lo and behold, minutes later we spotted a black bear off to the side of the road, and like any good pack of photographers, scrambled out to try and get a good shot. Here’s the best one of mine:
The bear in question felt a bit camera shy with that much attention and loped away, but after getting back in the car, my friend said it had occurred to him that we might not all have made it back if the bear had decided to “get friendly” with us. So that is the story of both my first professional photography experience and the first (and hopefully only) time I was almost eaten by a bear.
These days, I indulge my outgoing side and focus (no pun intended) primarily on event and conference photography. I'd love to hear from you, you can get in touch with me here.