Edward:  Let’s start up with your personal interests. Tell us about yourself, hometown, etc.

Brian:  Well, I was born and raised in Dallas.  I was really wild as a kid but for the most part I grew out of all that. I hated history but these days I just cannot get enough of it.  I think that really stems from an epiphany I had as a younger man that history repeats itself.  I really like to watch the present and anticipate the future.  I also am really interested in politics but here lately I’ve just been so disgusted and upset by what I am seeing that I can no longer stand to watch.

I love to travel and I’m fascinated by people.  I’m like a kid in a candy-store when I’m around somebody new.  I want to know everything about them and what really makes them tick.  I’ve got a really big heart with a lot of compassion and understanding for people and I like to help those in situations beyond their means to help themselves. 

My favorite place in the whole world is the shore of Maui at sunset.  Sitting alone in the trade-winds with the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs and watching the sun set on the Pacific really shows a man just how insignificant the little things we struggle with daily can be in the grand scheme of things.  If you text me there, forgive me if I don’t answer.

I also love to learn new things.  I’ll usually choose a documentary over a sit-com. I’m also very often accused of being impatient.  I live in a comfortable home in the suburbs of Dallas with my two Labrador Retrievers, Molly and Mabel.

I’m particularly close with a few of my neighbors and a handful of friends I’ve had for many years. And I bond well with everyone as long as they’re honest, considerate and somewhat intelligent.

Edward:  How did you become interested in a career as a photographer? And how do you define your style?

Brian:  How I became interested in photography is a fun story, but I don’t know how interesting it is.   I actually got my first formal training with a camera as a police crime-scene photographer.  My first photos of actual people I don’t think anyone would really want to see, nor would they want them to be seen I’d expect if they were still around to object.  But there I learned to master the camera, which in that role was important because if your composition, lighting or depth of field is off your pictures can lie like hell.  And the work was often tricky requiring resourcefulness and ingenuity. 

Just try photographing a subtle scratch, tool-mark, fiber or fingerprint in a dark room.  I suppose I must have been good at it because I was often called upon to teach others.  But given the subject matter, I can hardly say I ever had a burning desire to just pick up a camera.  I merely viewed if as a tool of the trade and never picked a camera up when I wasn’t working. 

All that changed in 1993.  I was in law school and broke and once again turned to my cameras to make money on the side by doing surveillance photography for several insurance companies.

 I was unloading my equipment from my car one day when I was approached by a very attractive man I had long before noticed in my apartment complex. He asked me if I was a photographer and if I shot model portfolios.  I had a mere idea what he was talking about when he mentioned a “portfolio” but I wasn’t going to say “no” and risk missing the opportunity to spend the day photographing this guy.

We set up a time to shoot and immediately I began my research to see what modeling agencies wanted in a portfolio.  We did the shoot and his agency went nuts over the photos.  I guess I blew away the other photographers in that market.

From there they were calling me and the rest is history.  But I don’t think my interest is in “photography” per se.   If that were the case I’d be shooting frogs, and flowers, and landscapes and such and I’m really not.   And I don’t think my interest is all in the subject matter either. 

I really don’t notice much how good looking a guy is when I’m working with him. I’m too in-tune with lighting and composition and with him as a person and what we’re trying to accomplish.  My muse is the imagery.  For me it is when I put the two together that the real magic occurs.  What can I do with this guy with this camera?  A model will never hear me oogle at him during a shoot. But if all goes well he will hear me oogle at his images.

Defining my “style” is a little more of a tricky question to answer.  First off, I try not to have “a style.”  Because when you do that you start hearing from people that all your stuff looks the same. I’m always trying to mix it up.  I admit I spend a lot of time looking at the work of others and pull off them what I like, and leave behind what I don’t.  Most often I hear my work looks like Bruce Weber’s or friends of models will tell often them their pictures look like an Abercrombie ad.  While I adore Bruce as a person and an artist and I do see some similarities, I tend to disagree that my work is most like his.  I think Bruce’s strengths are in subject matter and composition, and what photographer wouldn’t love to have his budget with sets that incorporate helicopters and live elephants?  And I probably do share some of his skills in getting the model in the mindset they need to be.

But I really think technically speaking my work is more akin to the work of Robert John Guttke. I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration from him.   While my guys are usually wearing more clothes, Robert and I share in the perceived value of using light and shadow for emphasis of the human form. 

Because of that, I believe more fitness and physique models tend to seek me out than the average photographer because they see and like how I have captured others.  I have to constantly seek men with slighter or more average builds to keep my work balanced or I will come across as a muscle-worshiper when I’m really not.

The fitness guys usually find me so I have fitness guys coming out my ears. I also like to listen to the models.  Some of my best images began with an idea by the model.

Edward:  Do you think that digital era really helped the photographers concerning aspects like quality and technology?

Brian: Well, I was a die-hard film guy.  While digital cameras were still in their infancy I always won my arguments for film over digital.  But as the technology improved I ran out of good arguments not to switch over to digital.  My reason for eventually switching was cost. I’d spend $5,000.00 a shoot in film and processing if I did as many takes with film as I can and do with digital. 

I quickly realized other benefits. I believe the quality and quantity of photography in general has improved dramatically with digital.  I still use my analog cameras for doorstops and fishing-weights and such. And I think I still have some film and slides growing mold in the refrigerator back behind the jelly. But for portfolio photography, everything I do these days is high-end digital with top of the line equipment.

There are still a few photographers still shooting film for portfolio purposes.  But I surely cannot understand why and have some suspicion they do so because of the added opportunities to mix in and mark-up the added processing costs.

Edward:  Do you think the society we live image worth more than a thousand words.

Brian:  I think images these days are worth far fewer words than they used to be. I think we live in a society today where we have sensory overload.  On a daily basis we are so overloaded with so many images the value and content of all of them are diluted by our televisions, magazines, computers, palms, etc.  

I think our society today it is increasingly so that image is reality.  Never mind how things really are.  It is how they appear that matters because nobody pays attention long enough to get past the surface.  There are some incredibly talented photographers out there that will not get a second look by publishers these days because beyond porn or the cheesy-cheap-quick-glance novelty market, imagery just doesn’t sell. Books with incredible photography are collecting dust on the marked-down tables of book-stores everywhere.  I believe society today is bored with it all and that is kind of sad.

Edward:  I’m sure you might have some unusual/funny backstage stories. Share some of them with us?

Brian:  Well, I guess I have a couple of favorites.  One was a time I grabbed the wrong model at the airport.  He looked like my guy’s picture, answered when I called his first name.  Got in the car and left with me and it wasn’t till I was pulling of of the parking garage that I realized I had Dillards’ model, and their driver had mine.  A quick trip back to the bag claim area to swap the Clints fixed all that. 

The best one was probably the time I was shooting a guy on a remote black-sand beach on the Big Island of Hawaii.  After relieving himself on the beach the model quickly found himself face-to-face with a native gorilla screaming because he’d just pissed on a ceremonial sacred beach.  The beach-caretaker intervened and all was eventually cool.   But what made that situation particularly amusing was this particular model was always pretty much a smart-ass.  He was one of these guys that always had a quick and cleaver comeback for everything.  But when Magilla-Gorilla was in his face he was quiet as a church mouse.  I guess you would have had to been there.

TO BE CONTINUED. WE WILL POST PART TWO OF THE INTERVIEW SOON. STAY WITH US!!!