Gregory White is a Seattle-based photographer with nearly a decade of experience of professional fashion photography under his belt and countless photographs from his international travels. I recently had the opportunity to interview him about how he was able to get started in photography.

How did you get started as a photographer and what’s your background?

I studied film and video production in college. I moved to Seattle in 1992 and began working at a grip and lighting shop that saw a lot of business due to the thriving film production that was happening here in the early 90's. Since then, much of the film business has moved up to Vancouver, which forced me to take a new direction.  In my spare time, I began picking up my old still camera and built a darkroom. I loved shooting, developing my own film, and printing black and whites in my darkroom, which re-instilled my passion for photography.

While working in the grip and lighting business, a few fashion photographers would come in to rent lights and equipment, and one of them asked me to assist him on a regular basis. Soon after, I was working several days a week at the Bon Marche, which is now Macy's, as a freelance fashion photography assistant where I learned to shoot models and got to travel for photo shoots.

I worked for them for 7 years until I  began getting photo work of my own shooting advertising for local theater groups, doing portraits and the like, which was great, but I found myself really wanting to shoot more real life, outside of the studio.

Since then, I’ve worked on and off with other photographers, which is a great way to learn different ways to photograph a subject. For the past 10 years, I have worked with some fantastic photographers who shoot for big national magazines like Sports Illustrated, Time, and National Geographic. At the same time, I have travelled the world photographing people and places in my own style - I'd call it fine art travel.