Mr. Grant originally hails from Jersey City, NJ. where, at a young age, Mr. Grant developed an interest in photography. This interest then led him to study photography at Jersey City State College.

Post college, in 1976, Mr. Grant moved to Los Angeles, where he honed his photography skills working as a portrait photographer. 

Upon returning to the East Coast in 1980, Mr. Grant had the great fortune to meet and subsequently work for renown photographers Anthony Barboza and James Van Der Zee, assisting in photographing portraits of notable people such as Miles Davis, Cecily Tyson, Camille Cosby, Mario Van Peebles, Toukie Smith, Barbara Smith, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Mohamed Ali, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, and the first African-American network news anchor, Max Robinson. 

Shortly thereafter, Mr. Grant started his own photography business, first, setting up shop in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood (the Floral District) followed by a move to NYC’s Hell’s Kitchen where he renovated a 2000 square foot loft, creating his own photography studio. 

In 1995, Mr. Grant saw an opportunity to expand his business and move to NYC’s thriving Soho artist community, where he again renovated a raw, loft space. Mr. Grant named this 3500 square foot space, New Era Studios. It was here that Mr. Grant, while continuing with his photography business, opened his doors to other photographers and production companies, renting out New Era Studios and New Era Studios photography equipment.

After 10 years in Soho, Mr. Grant seized an opportunity to expand his studio rental business, moving his Soho operations to Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, renaming New Era Studios, Brooklyn Studios, to better align with his newfound neighborhood. Here, Mr. Grant flexed his interior design muscle and impeccable design aesthetic, transforming the raw, 10,000 square foot loft space into 2 rental studios, providing client’s with stage rental options. A light and airy venue replete with skylights, dressing rooms, top-of-the-line shoot-in kitchen’s and baths, unique, on-trend designer furniture, and a rooftop cyclorama which afforded clients 360 degree views of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, Brooklyn Studios was the go-to studio for many high end clients, old and new.

In 2015 Mr. Grant again saw an opportunity in Queens, NY’s sleepy industrial neighborhood, Long Island City. Here he grew his business from two studio spaces to 4 studios spaces peppered throughout the LIC neighborhood. Again, knowing what his clients were looking for, Mr. Grant renovated these raw spaces, 50,000 square feet in total, to state-of-the art impeccably designed stages. 

Through the years, as a photographer, Mr. Grant has numbered Elle Magazine, Ebony Man, Essence Magazine, Sony Records, Epic Records, Def Jam, Jive Records, Atlantic Records as clients, photographing luminaries such as Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dog, Spike Lee, Tyra Banks, Toni Braxton, Sugar Ray Leonard, Freddie Jackson, Kidd Creole, and A Tribe Called Quest, to name a few. 

As a studio rental space, Brooklyn Studios client list is long and impressive, including McDonald’s, NBA, Saturday Night Live, Brides Magazine, Vogue Magazine, ABC TV, Revlon, Prada, Maybelline, Blue Bloods, Amazon, HBO, Netflix, Vice, American Express, Adidas, Saks Fifth Avenue, Uber, Spotify…the list goes on, as does the list of celebrities that have graced the Brooklyn Studios stages: Jerry Seinfeld, Daniel Craig, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Tom Brady, Jennifer Lopes, Swiss Beatz, Carrie Underwood, Vanessa Williams, Tony Bennett, Serena Williams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Shania Twain…again, just to name a few.

Mr. Grant’s passion for photography, history and culture has brought him, his camera, and his keen eye to over 50 countries on several continents including Africa, South America, Central America and Europe. These travels have yielded hundreds of photographs documenting the African diaspora, a subject very near and dear to Mr. Grant’s heart, and indigenous communities such as Kenya’s Masai Tribe, Tanzania’s Sukuma Tribe, the Dogan Tribe in Mali, the Incas in Peru and the Mayan people of Mexico.

While Mr. Grant is busy running Brooklyn Studios, he spends his ‘downtime’ exploring new spaces that, if they are the right fit, could become part of the Brooklyn Studios family of stages. You might also find Mr. Grant pouring over his vast inventory of thousands of photos from his travels, as he works on curating a book of these treasured images and a show of his work in the future.