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Grant Hamilton was born in 1969. At the University of Illinois he earned a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts in Industrial Design. Afterwards he was an Industrial Designer in Chicago but "realized that I enjoyed being a design student much more than being a design professional." So he changed direction and by now works as an Assistant Professor and Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. This change did not mean the artistic and expressive notions were lost. He states that he had always had at least a passing interest in photography. As a key moment he detects the birth of his daughter: "I wanted to document her growth with more than snapshots. I started with a Canon 10D digital SLR and was happy with my progress. After a while though, I began searching for my artistic voice and found myself gravitating toward the Polaroid photography that I saw on the Internet. I bought an SX-70 Alpha 1 and I quickly realized that the square format and characteristic colors of the Polaroid film were perfect for the types of subjects I was interested in." The Polaroids support his conclusion visibly. Hamilton hunts for details, or better; the details find him. He is fascinated with tiny inconspicuous fragments taken randomly out of buildings, fences, shields, adverts and other items that pass through our every day life. "I try to find minimal, uncluttered, graphic compositions in the mundane details of daily life." His design training is obvious in each of his photos; only few portraits make an exception. Often playing with a large amount of space, he displays lines, curves, parts of letters, focusing on flaws, imperfection, the unusual in the usual and rarely ever shows the whole, always moving very close to the subject or only capturing a part of it from the far, filtering a detail out of his view. "I never manipulate my subjects. They are shot as I find them." Very entertaining, personable and often decently witty are the descriptions going along with the particular picture, adding life to the still image.

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