Email: oddstick@me.com
Phone: (001) 518 470 3620
Tom Williams - Williams Landscape Lighting Design "George Gruel is, without a doubt, the best photographer of landscape lighting living today. He is able to merge multiple image/exposures into a single image that actually looks like what my lighting design looks like in the field. It's his absolute mastery of digital photography and total understanding of the functioning human eye that makes it possible for him to produce such fidelity. I know when I ask George Gruel to photograph a project, I've hired a pro who has joined my team and is giving me the best he can produce. I am certain he's recording exactly what I designed - no more, no less. And he is FAST! His last outing with me lasted 2.5 to 3 hours. In that short time he produced 10 excellent photographs. That translates as a lot of bang for my buck. Ron Carter - Kichler Lighting - Corporate Product and Technical Trainer "My name is Ron Carter. I am the Corporate Product and Technical Trainer for Kichler Lighting in Cleveland, Ohio. About a month ago, I hired George to teach the new night time photography portion of my Kichler Landscape Lighting Hands-On Seminar. This is where contractors learn all about landscape lighting as it relates to their jobs of designers and installers. I wanted to add nighttime photography for the class as in my travels across the country, so many contractors had a difficult time photographing their jobs at night which they wanted to use to get more jobs. I had first worked with George when I attended Janet Moyer’s Lighting Institute last year. There were images of George’s daytime and nighttime work hanging everywhere and was very impressive. George was also the photographer for the event I attended. His knowledge and professionalism combined with his easy going personality really impressed me. So when I decided to add photography to my class, I thought of utilizing George’s talents for it. George came to Cleveland well prepared with hand-outs for the class and was ready to go with little preparation. What was so great is that he made it easy for us to learn how to photograph at night as it can be a little intimidating. I wanted to learn this as well and once George took over, I was his student too. His simple steps really did the trick. After the classroom portion of the training, we went out to the job site to perform the landscape lighting installation. That evening George was very accommodating in that he was showing many of us how to actually work our own cameras. The very first shot I took that night was a winner thanks to George’s lessons. I highly recommend George Gruel for any photography event, whether teaching at an event, or being the actual photographer for your project." Peping Dee, LC, MIES, LEED AP - Principal - Inform Lightworks "George is one of the most talented and knowledgeable photographers working in the lighting industry today. We put his gift to good use when we hired him to produce a series of product and application shots of our sealed, modular lighting fixtures at LITE360. The images he gave us were beautiful, inspiring, and helped us communicate key features and differentiators to our discerning specifiers. I recommend George to all of our clients." Alexandra Taylor - President at Elegance Outdoor Lighting “George is a superlative presenter, giving relevant and detailed instruction how to create and edit landscape lighting photography. His vast experience, excellent levels of achievement and great humor lend expertise and understanding to his classroom lecture and presentations.” Tori Poppenheimer - Senior Product Designer at Amerlux Lighting Solutions LLC “George is a pleasure to work with and be around. His skill at capturing images of lighting installations, truly representing the scene as experienced/viewed in person is unequaled in my experience. Additionally his ability to produce stunning product images in studio or at installations is exceptional. From the most artistic and creative concept shots to the technically demanding and detailed work that sets product promotional literature in a class by itself, the breadth and consistency of his work is profound. In my 28 years of experience developing new products for world class manufacturing companies I've work with several top notch photographers. George is by far the best in my opinion.” Jan Lennox Moyer - Principal - Jan Moyer Design "Starting with the first photograph George took of my work, his night lighting photographs have changed my world. He understands light, he understands design, the camera seems to be an extension of him. He has captured imagery far better than anything I have ever experienced previously. As he keeps learning more about the world of landscape lighting, his imagery keeps getting more incredible.
Before I met George, a photo session starting at dark and going through the night, often until dawn, would normally produce a maximum of 4-5 images, and I would find 2-3 of them useable for my business. With George, we often get more than 10, more than 20 images, all of them useable, and, he always provides extras that are his visions of the project - details of the leaves of a plant, a viewing angle we had not discussed, and, one I would not have thought useful….." John Pletcher - Principal - Natural Accents Outdoor Lighting Design "Everything I do as a lighting designer is visual art. What George Gruel gave to me was the ability to show my art, on certain projects, with other than the client that had the design installed. His talent is showing what my visual art looks like in real life with his photography".