Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan (Bren) Grossnickle.
Brendan, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
To understand where I am now and how I started you have to understand where I came from… My whole life from 2-19 years old I have been around cars and photo memories… About 3 years ago I want to say I started going to car shows and going out more and more and just networking. From there my mother passed down a camera that was hers to me and my photography journey set sail…
Now when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school I took a photography class however today’s standards and what I do currently it doesn’t even compare… Getting back to my photography journey, however, my mother passed down her camera to me and it was like touching gold in a way it was like I had the key to happiness.
Now I used that camera for I want to say about two years and I felt like I was doing good enough to where it was time to sort of up the ante a little bit and upgrade my camera setup… And this is exactly what I did… I had about 400-500 dollars saved up to buy a new camera and I ended up finding a Canon 60d with many accessories for about $350 on FB Marketplace surprisingly and it was a much nicer camera than what I had worked with before…
A Canon Rebel XS which in its period was a nice camera however by today’s standards it isn’t… Anyways I got the new camera and it took me about a month or so to get acclimated to it and become decent at editing photos with it as well… however, once it clicked it almost boomed at the same time… The number of bookings I was receiving was higher than ever and the photos were also better than ever…
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I don’t want to say it has been smooth or that it has been a rough road in all honesty… For me, there were some speed bumps in the process. Now I don’t believe that all of the roadblocks or bumps were hard to overcome however it was more or so self-control as well just putting myself out there with everything and giving it my all…
I am a firm believer that everyone should have to experience some sort of rough path in life… Not only does it shape who we are but it forces us to work harder and put ourselves out in the world more!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a photographer however when people hear photographer mainly they are going to think of portrait photography and that isn’t necessarily my style… As I stated before, I have been around many many different cars throughout my life and with that being said it was self-explanatory what route I chose for photography… Vehicles… now when I say vehicles I mainly go for cars however I have done motorcycles and other vehicles, however.
As far as branching out, I’ve done some portrait photography, some street, and then some that happen to be random photos from wherever I happen to bring my camera…I have to say that I am most proud of how far I have come, we all know that a journey is a journey and mine was no different than the rest, but the satisfaction in seeing the first photo you ever took vs your most recent is just a damn good blessing in disguise!
What matters most to you?
This is a great question and mainly personal growth and networking. You will never get anywhere in the world if you are sitting on your couch being lazy binge watching Netflix or Hulu or whatever streaming service it may be… You physically will not make it in society today, you have to burn it into your brain that you have to grow yourself, mentally, physically, and emotionally…
You have to put yourself out there to other people, and I think it’s sad, the whole global pandemic fucked everything up for the entire world and it’s like all that people know is to stay in their homes and be antisocial…
Contact Info:
- Tikok: @punkdphotography
