Thorough exploration by a two year old.

Our visit to the zoo.

You didn’t look through your viewfinder.  You guessed at the metering.  And you didn’t bother to focus because you were using your focusing hand to stuff your face with the last bite of the chicken burrito you splurged $4.50 on at the local mexi-wagon.

Art works in mysterious ways.

And, come to think of it, I want to see what your test shots look like.  Send me links.  Maybe we’ll have a test shoot off.

Salmon Street Springs. Fountain in Waterfront park.

Pendleton Round-Up.

Make friends who are photographers, even if you too are a photographer.  In exchange for a mere chuck of steak (medium-well) from my rickety barbecue, Daniel Root made this image of my daughter.

Dear Dan, Please come over to dinner every night this week.  - Brian

“I’m a photographer with the New York Times”.  It goes without saying that that feels good to say.  What doesn’t feel good is knowing that both the Oregonian and the Willamette Week show more contractual respect for their photographers.  And so with mixed feelings I have to say good bye Times.  I’ll sign off with images from my last assignment.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/realestate/commercial/19space.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=real%20estate%20intel&st=cse

The beauty of re-design.

Light gray on light gray motif.

Test shots aren't always bad.

The chutes.

Kid cowboys.

Preparing to rope

If you look very closely, you can see an airborne steer!

I don’t often shoot this way, from so far away, but it makes it fun to try and think about compositions on a grander scale.  My friend from graduate school, Uwe Martin, was a master at this (check out the second image in his Bangladesh story).  He would make a composition and then just wait for the moment.  I usually get impatient.

Notice the vertical leap of a 2500 lb bull.

This a an unhappy one-ton animal with large horns trying to get a crazy, 165-lb cowboy with large cojones off his back.  This is especially impressive up close.

I picked dirt from my teeth after this shot.

Blake is the sponsored steer wrestler for the Let 'er Buck cologne campaign I've been working on for Brewhouse Studio. This photograph was made a few minutes before he competed in this year's Pendleton Round-Up.

The Pendleton Round-Up is manliness, history, dust, athleticism, buckle-bunnies, whiskey, friendship, and pure excitement for four days every year.  Brewhouse Studio rented a 300 foot RV, bought 15 pairs of old cowboy boots, and packed up the creative paraphernalia from 6 months of work and headed east to launch our biggest campaign to date.  I had perhaps one of the more enviable jobs of our stay, photographing the craziness of the bucking, roping, throwing, and racing from quite close.  During the bull riding I got a mouthful of sod.

This might be my favorite image I made while there.  I shot it thinking about Sam Abell’s image of the Canadian fishermen.