About

The Beginning.

There in the conurbation fit for royalty, a mother gave birth to a son that would soon grow to dictate worlds, a son named Nathaniel J. Grubbs (known as “Nat” to his family and eventually “Nate” to most others). After giving birth to this fine son, his parents decided that perfection had been reached after three other tries at child-making (one oldest daughter and two other sons); though all of these children were amazingly formed in their own right, the purpose of this story is to focus on the youngest Nathaniel.

Being in a family of travelers, Nathaniel spent much of his summer vacations traversing the country with the car window his viewfinder. If one week was available, the family would often travel to the Outer Banks of North Carolina trying to catch aberrations of Blackbeard’s ghost and others found in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”. If two weeks of opportunity, the family of six would pack up the station wagon and travel five days across the country (and five days back) to explore the many other territories of the United States and Canada. During this time, the young Nathaniel developed a sense of awareness of his surroundings, taking visual interest in the many contrastive lands, seas, and towns around him. Armed with a Vivitar point-and-shoot 35mm film camera (and even the family’s 110mm) he captured these unique locales, training his eye for the tasks of later life.

During his middle childhood, influenced by his mother’s father (who was an educationist and builder who spent many years renovating and expanding a Civil War era log cabin), Nathaniel was mentally preparing for a future in the field of architecture. Nathaniel refined on his environmental awareness and began experimenting in architecture by drawing floor plans for wealthy aristocrats during his pre-teen years. Though this never manifested into anything permanent, Nathaniel continued to live as an unseen genius hidden the body of a child.

The Birth of Passion.

Let us therefore move into the High School years. During this time, Nathaniel was given the opportunity to study under a perspicacious scholar of photography at the establishment of Myers Park High in the fair Queen City. Just prior to inception into this  renowned Photo I class in his third year at this institution, he managed to buy his first 35mm film SLR camera, a Pentax ZX-5. It was during this time of his third year that he was able to first shoot, develop and print his first roles of black & white film, and it was love at first touch. The smell of D-76, Dektol, and sodium thiosulfate still bring tears to his eyes.

By the end of his high school experience, he had changed his views of careers from architecture to world of photography. He left the city to cross the threshold of college known commonly as Appalachian State University in Boone, NC (named appropriately after the legendary pioneer and explorer Daniel Boone). He began his college experience with the customary classes while managing to take photography courses for his major. Eventually after meeting several graphic design majors, and since he being a Philomath, Nathaniel felt that being dually degreed would be quite marketable. He therefore pursued and received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, and a Bachelors of Science in Industrial Technology with a concentration in Technical Photography.

Upon graduation, Nathaniel again traveled across the country to the Pacific Northwest to city of Portland, Oregon. There the prestigious international design group, Razorfish, offered him a job. Before packing all his worldly possessions and moving across country, Nathaniel packed his backpack and spent a month traveling in Europe taking trains from the United Kingdom to the Czech Republic. There he wandered streets, camera in hand, ending off in Prague, the hometown of one his favorite photographers, Josef Sudek.

The Unfettered.

After working a little over three years at Razorfish (as unofficial house-photographer), Nathaniel decided to make the leap to go out on his own. He has always been a man who reveled in new challenges — when learning stagnates, it must be stirred. Though his major reason for leaving the comfort of a permanent position was so that he could travel. Traveling from an early age had always been a belief to value. The idea of traveling is not to “escape” as many often do on vacation, but for Nathaniel he sees traveling, not as vacation, but as a chance to witness and experience other cultures and ways of living. It is a means to free oneself from the arrogance of self-absorption and the poor decisions often made in the inebriated state.

Since becoming a Freelancer, each year, Nathaniel prefers to spend time elsewhere. During 2006 and 2010, he traveled to Sudan, Tanzania, and twice to Uganda, all to document for a Portland-based non-profit organization, Lahash International. He has spent a month in Thailand living with locals, while photographing. And in 2009, he flew to Western Europe to visit Northern Irish friends around Britain and Ireland while also traveling alone to Barcelona, Lyon and Paris. In the district of Montmartre, he wandered and photographed empty streets, and bought gramophone records of old French “Chanson” classics. One never knows where you may find our dear protagonist. His presence is made known here in hypertext and links for discovery. Seek and ye shall find….