Endless Summer
Travel photographer Gray Malin’s style is instantly recognizable. Replete with sunshine, color and whimsy, Malin’s body of work over the last decade includes shots of balloons on llamas in the desert, aerial views of beach umbrellas and sun-kissed shores in cotton candy colors, evoking a nostalgic sense of beauty and harmony that has delighted his 440,000 followers on Instagram.
A little over a decade ago Malin, 35, was selling black and white photos from a trip to Europe out of a booth at a Los Angeles flea market.
He got to know his customers and realized that for many, the art world was stuffy and unapproachable and vowed to change that.
“When I took this leap of faith, I had no idea that photography would become sort of the art form of this generation” — Gray Malin
Today his website hosts a range of products, from prints to puzzles to playing cards featuring his images, as well as five coffee-table books including Beaches, which was a New York Times bestseller.
The popularity of his work has also spawned compilations with Veuve Clicquot, Disney, Sperry Top-Sider, Le Meridien and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
It’s the cheerful nature of the topics he shoots, and the escapism his photographs offer that, has captured the fancy of those looking to brighten up their walls with the endlessly sunny skies and blue waters Marin so skillfully captures.
“I feel like I have so much in me still that I am fighting to create, it’s just this constant explosion.” — Gray Malin
