Hi there! My name is Greg and I'm the guy who is responsible for all of the photography that appears on all of the awesome products here in the WagnerPhotographyFL Etsy shop. I live in the beautiful city of Fort Myers, Florida. Fort Myers is on Florida's west coast about 120 miles south of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. I've been around forever it seems, having established Wagner Photography in January 1986, but the story of my photography life actually begins in early 1974.

In February 1974, 3 months before my 20th birthday, my dad gave me my first "real" camera, a Minolta SRT 101. I immediately fell in love with taking pictures, getting creative and improving my skills. By the summer of 1975 I had built a darkroom in the basement and was developing all of my own black and white film and doing tons of black and white printing.

Fast forward to 1984. My hobby, which had evolved into a obsession, was about to become a profession when I placed my first ad in the phone book and yellow pages (remember those?). Living in Florida had provided an opportunity to photograph beautiful scenery and wildlife, but with the telephone book advertising I expanded my horizons to include portrait work, weddings and some commercial photography as well. I have been a huge baseball fan since birth therefore, not surprisingly, a lot of my photography involved action shots of ball games and believe me there is a tremendous amount of baseball and other sports here in southwest Florida. By 1985 I was doing okay with my little photography business but not well enough to quit my "real" job.

My "big break" came in December 1985 when I was contracted by the Chicago Cubs baseball fantasy camp to provide all of the photography needed for two one-week camps in Mesa, Arizona to take place in January 1986. *Note: a fantasy camp is an opportunity for a Cubs fan to play baseball and socialize with retired professional players. Fantasy camps are very expensive to attend and photography is an important way to document the experience.* Landing the contract with the Chicago Cubs was huge. It opened so many doors it was mind-boggling. Before long I was working for several other fantasy camps, including the Rangers, Giants, Athletics, White Sox, Brewers, Twins and more. In addition I was contracted to shoot NFL and NCAA football, baseball from T-ball age to college, and still to this day have a contract with the state of Florida to photograph numerous sporting events each year.

The sports thing is fine and dandy but it does bring on a lot of wear and tear on the body. That's where the artistic, landscape and wildlife photography comes into play. I'm starting to slow down a bit. Less time trying to keep up with athletes and more time composing a nice landscape or an hour taking pictures of a great heron as he's fishing.

I hope you enjoy browsing our Etsy shop (my son and I work together on it). Needless to say every image used on our line of products is 100% original work straight out of my camera. If there is a photography you like a lot but don't see it on the right product, make sure you get in touch with us and we'll try our best to fulfill your request.

Thanks for stopping by!