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Sam Gray discover new opportunities to grow.
In 2009, Sam Gray became a Fellow in the American Society of Photographers. Over the past three years, 11 of the 12 prints he entered in PPA print competitions were accepted into the prestigious Loan Collection. Painting ©Sam Gray
Sam Gray specializes in creating heirloom-quality fine-art portraits and paintings that will withstand the test of time and blend with any decor. Working from his home/studio on a six-acre heavily wooded site in Raleigh, NC, he has built a loyal base of customers that includes upscale clients from all over the Carolinas and beyond.
Although he does incorporate fun and trendy images in his shoots, his primary business goal is to produce timeless, classic portraits that families can proudly display for generations.
He has devoted four decades of his life to photography, successfully overcoming the numerous obstacles that arose during the transformation from film to digital photography in the late ‘90s.
As the market for portrait photography began to shift, Gray realized he needed to change. Many of his affluent clients started buying their own high-end DSLRs and software, so he recognized that “it was imperative to develop my talents at a level that could not easily be duplicated.”
The creative and artistic side of the profession had always appealed to him, so he decided to take his passion for art to a whole new level: “I visited art galleries and museums, collected art books, and attended art seminars and workshops.” Some seminars were taught by digital artists such as Helen Yancey, Janet Conner-Ziser, and Jeremy Sutton; others were taught by traditional painters. He was inspired by studying the works of Monet, Manet, Renoir, Sargent, Pissaro, Seurat, Sisley, van Gogh, Degas, Cassatt, Pino, and Royo. He examined the brushwork, style, and mood of their masterpieces to find elements he could apply to his own artistic endeavors.
Now, his clients can buy either a hand-painted or photographic portrait, a digitally painted photograph, or a mixed-media portrait in which the surface of the print is embellished with brush strokes, chalks, or pastels. As a painter and photographer, he sells his work at a range of price points, depending on how much work is involved. “You never know what each client will want,” says Gray. “Everyone has different tastes and budgets.”
For quality-control purposes, Gray prefers printing his own work. He started out with an Epson Stylus Pro 2000P and upgraded to the larger Epson 4000 and 4800 and 9800 printers.
In the early 2000s, he owned an eleven-color, wide-format ColorSpan Displaymaker Series XII 52-inch printer, which was one of the first photo printers that could use more than six or eight colors of ink. But he always had difficulties with it and there weren’t enough other users in the field to help him economically overcome problems such as a recurring greenish tint. Plus, the stability of the inks had never been thoroughly tested. Recently, a client brought one of the ColorSpan prints back into Gray’s studio for cleaning and matching to a new portrait on the Epson 9800 he currently uses. Although the client couldn’t tell, Gray immediately noticed that some fading had already occurred in the Displaymaker print.
Because the UltraChrome K3 inks have been tested by Wilhelm Imaging Research with certain types of media to have a display life of 100 to 200 years, Gray no longer worries that his fine portraits will fade prematurely.
He prints most of his wall portraits on LexJet Sunset Select Canvas, but also uses Sunset Textured Fine Art, as well as papers from Epson, Innova, and Hahnemuhle. “I’ve learned so much more by printing my portraits myself. Working with colors has also made me a better artist,” Gray says.
For quality-control purposes, Gray prefers printing his own work. He believes working with colors during printing has made him a better artist.
Painting ©Sam Gray
Gray has always believed in the value of entering print competitions. But after he took an 11-year hiatus and focused on acquired new art skills, he was awarded the PPA Photographer of the Year, Diamond level in 2008 and 2009. This year, three of the four prints he entered into competition were accepted into the PPA’s prestigious Loan Collection, which earned him the Photographer of the Year, Platinum level.
He recalls a time when photographers who produced their own competition prints were automatically awarded a higher score, an acknowledgement that more artistic and technical skills were involved in crafting the print. Gray would like to see this policy be reinstated because he believes: “The photographers who will be around the longest are those who understand all facets of the business.”
Sam Gray uses a number of channels to market his services. Sam Gray Portraits have appeared in numerous magazines ranging from Veranda, Victoria, Southern Accents, Southern Living and North Carolina Design to the North Carolina Medical Journal. Exhibitions of his work have been displayed in several malls and the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
“We try all kinds of different ways of getting our name out,” says Gray. He says it seems to be working, because his website continues to get hits from 96 countries.
In 2009, Sam Gray became a Fellow in the American Society of Photographers (ASP). In his application thesis, he recounted the many challenges he has overcome, serving with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, suffering the loss of his first wife to cancer, and recovering from two incidents of hurricane and electrical-storm damage to his studio.
Gray’s reflections on his 40-year photography career are instructive to anyone hoping to build an equally long career in photography: “Very few things are guaranteed in one’s life and one’s profession. We all face life-altering moments, difficult decisions, uncertain choices, the death of our beloved, and the need for changes in life. Yet when we choose to be thankful for having these experiences, and open our minds to learning the good that can derive from them, we triumph over life’s obstacles and move a step close to achieving our goals.”
To see more of his work go to www.samgrayportraits.com