Justin Grant Photography

Here are the images of the spectacular Miss Utah Laura Chukanov and Miss Teen Utah Tasha Smedley.  Good luck at National’s ladies!

December 18, 2008 we were invited over to Gregory Haerr’s house, one of the stars of FOX’s “Secret Millionaire” show, to view the episode he was in.  Greg donated $150,000 total between three organizations and of course Melinda was crying throughout the whole show!  You can view more on Greg at Gregoryhaerr.com or www.fox.com/secretmillionaire/

Check out a shot we did for his webpage:

I’m working on a new project right now (all in my head so far.)  It involves a skate punk, and possibly an old lady.  Went out tonight to test phase one of the shots.  Hope to have the final shot finished within a few weeks…hopefully it’s as cool as the h2o shot.   (click shot to enlarge)

Photo.net called me and asked to interview me for an October 2008 article. When I first started photography I would post my work on Photo.net and learn from it wether from criticism or compliments.  I’m honored to be contacted by them.  The link is below if you want to read it:

Link: http://photo.net/featured-member/2008/september/justin-grant-commercial-photographer

I started December on a high note!  I just finished the H2o shot I had been working on over the last two weeks.  My new pride and joy!!  Many thanks to Melinda for the styling and makeup, Jaylene for the hair and my assistant Neo for pouring buckets of water in the freezing cold until we got the perfect water texture shots!  Hope you enjoy…

In October 2008 I shot the stunning Jennifer Taggert, soon to be Mrs. Neria, in her wedding gown.  I don’t shoot weddings but her boyfriend saw me in New York back in January and asked us if when he proposed to Jen he could tell her the news that I would be shooting her bridals!  He said he didn’t know what she was more excited about being proposed to or the news that she would be shooting with me! LOL  We did some really cool pictures so I had to share them…

Meli and I spent the weekend of Nov 14th, 2008 in Ogden, UT judging the Miss Utah USA pageant.  Ogden has some incredible restaurants and the pageant wined and dined us all weekend!  Who knew?  You must visit downtown Ogden.  The other judges were a lot of fun and overall the whole experience was great.  Laura Chukanov won the Miss Utah title and Tasha Smedley won the Miss Teen Utah title.  We sponsor the pageant and are excited to shoot both of them soon  Congrats ladies and to see more visit www.missutahusa.com!

I’m always asked how I got into photography, and I repeat the story of taking photos of my kids for fun, and realized I had a nack.  I stumbled onto some of the very first images today!  Thought I’d share…

In September 2008 I was asked by Canon and Pictureline to make a guest appearance at  Digital Fest 08.  I bought my first camera, and lights five years ago from Berkley at Pictureline and had no clue that a few years later I would be the person chosen to represent Canon.  It was an honor to be a part of it and it made me appreciate my progress and all the hard work it took to get where I am today.

I had the pleasure of sponsoring and shooting the lovely Miss Utah USA Julia Bachison and Miss Teen Utah USA Kate Feinstein for the upcoming pageant program in September of 2008.  They asked Meli and I to participate as judges!  You can see more of Miss Utah 2008 at www.Juliabachison.com and you can see more of Kate and the pageant at www.missutahusa.com.

In August 2008 Meli, Kat Ward, my assistant Neo and I flew to Las Vegas to shoot the ad campaign for the new Christian Audgier club at Treasure Island.  Paul Rippen’s from B&P Advertising is in charge of advertising for the Light Group.  There were 70 people on set!  Big production…a lot of pressure.  Thank god Bryan was there to make sure the cast was having a great time (too much fun at times…!)  Looking forward to more shoots with Paul, and Molly Murray (producer) and the Lightgroup.

This is Molly the producer dancing with the talent for a shot

In August of 2008 East West Partner’s hired us to shoot for their magazine.  I shot food for the first time!  Jerry Garcia is the owner and chef and we shot the pork tenderloin from his restaurant Chez Betty in Park City.  It was actually harder than it looks to make it look yumsky, but I am happy with my first attempt.  Would you eat it???

In August of 2008 Peter Lissner commissioned Chris DeRubeis to re-create and paint pictures we took of his wife Cass into pieces of artwork!  You can check out more of his work at DeRubeisfineart.com.  

In July of 2008 we took a family trip to Lake Powell… just in time for gas prices to raise to $4.50 per gallon!  It was worth it though because we took the time to shoot some family pictures…

We heard bulldog’s can’t swim and luckily ours can because Stella fell in the lake and didn’t come back up and we thought she was gone… as Meli and I were searching for her close to where she fell in, McCade saw her pop up the other side of the boat with her head barely above water!  Now she wears a lifejacket

My gorgeous daughter Brooklyn celebrated her 14th birthday in June 2008.  Meli and I threw her a huge party for all of her friends.  Happy Birthday Brooklyn!  Time flies.

In June of 2008 Meli and I shot the lovely Kathleen Tesori and she won the Flex Competition a month later in Vegas and used some of our photos for it.  Take a look…

In May of 2008 after months of trying to find the perfect new studio we finally signed the lease on our new space!  We are moving in July and can’t wait to have a state of the art facility.  I will post photos soon.

In May of 2008 we had been shooting with the absolutely stunning Masha Kirilenko for her high end clothing boutique Fleur De Lis and also for her upcoming album.  I hung out of a helicopter to get some arial shots of her while Meli stressed because I was not strapped in!  

I had the opportunity to work with the talented Derek Ashby and the Better Life Band again.  Hopefully when they make it big they will still hire me for shoots :)