ESPN Freeskiing

"35,000 frames—about the same as I shot the year before," photographer Grant Gunderson says of his pictorial bounty from the '08/09 winter.

"Of the 35,000, and that's after my first round of edits, I'd expect to sell at least 500, minimum. It's a numbers game, and you've got to have a huge body of work to keep the commercial and magazine clients happy."

Gunderson, who has called Bellingham, Wash., home for the last ten years, is the photo editor of The Ski Journal. But he also contributes to, oh, some 200 magazines/clients. Bullish and who knew? Gunderson apparently...

"In addition to The Ski Journal, I work with Powder, Ski, Skiing, Backcountry, Outside, SBC Skier and then a whole slew of magazines in Europe. There's just a ton of ski mags in Europe and Japan. In fact, I probably make two-thirds of my income from Europe—every country has two or three mags, so it's good."

What's also good is Gunderson's debut gallery for ESPN Freeskiing.

GRANT GUNDERSON '08/09 PHOTO SELECTS HERE

Gunderson is also a good talker. So we talked.

"I've been shooting for ten years and I've gone completely full-time about four years ago now," he says. "Up until this year, skiing's been it. But now I'm starting to shoot a little bit more mountain biking and hiking and backpacking—you know, general summertime stuff."

Mentors? "I'm pretty good friends with most of the ski photographers out there, and I definitely think we all feed off each other. But if I have to say one, Erik Seo. And as far as inspiration growing up, it'd definitely be Mark Shapiro. He's pretty much the godfather of action sports photography. He was doing ski photography before it really existed as we know it."

Did you study photography? "I went to college for engineering. I applied for the photo department, but they said I wasn't qualified. So engineering, yeah."

College? "Western Washington; been in Bellingham in ten years now. Moved there to go to school and I just didn't leave."

Lifelong Canon devotee? "I wouldn't say I'm a lifelong devotee. But I used to manage a camera store for seven years, so I've dabbled in everything out there. But when I bought my own gear, I bought Canon—because it was the best. And I guess I should still say Canon because now they're sending me cameras and I don't want to get in trouble there..."

What's more your focus—making images or hawking 'em? "Depends on the season, but it probably breaks down to 50-50 throughout the year. Make images all winter then market them in the summer and try to make back what I spent making them all winter. ... In order to be successful as a photographer, you not only have to be good at making photos, but probably more important is the business side of it: Making sure you don't double submit to mags, making sure you're producing good, good images anytime you're out shooting, things like that."

Sort comments by: Most Recent | First Posted