“WITH A ONE AND A HALF-YEAR OLD AND ANOTHER CHILD ON THE WAY, BRIAN WALKED AWAY FROM A SUCCESSFUL CAREER AND THE SECURITY AND COMFORT OF THE CORPORATE EXECUTIVE SUITE TO INDULGE THE CREATIVE PASSIONS OF HIS INNER ARTIST. HIS MOTHER, AS WELL AS HIS FORMER COLLEAGUES, THOUGHT HE WAS NUTS.”

BUT WITHIN A FEW SHORT YEARS, WHEN AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE NAMED HIM “ONE OF THE TOP 10 WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE WORLD”, BRIAN FELT HIS DECISION HAD BEEN JUSTIFIABLE.

9/11/2001
THE DAY I ALLOWED MYSELF TO BECOME
A PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER
by Brian
⁠

Photography had been a lifelong passion of mine - but given my upbringing, art was never a career option. It was a hobby.

And so it was. I focused on ‘serious things’ - studied computer science, engineering & finance. Worked at Investment Banks doing high tech mergers and acquisitions because ‘that’s what you did’ in the late 80s. (Of course, since I spent time at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers - both eventually went bankrupt - I should have taken the hint.)

As a creative type, my mind eventually numbed, I went for a Masters in Interactive Media at NYU. I was thrilled by dreams of new media being made capable by emerging technologies - in a time when we actually would sit in coffee shops in the village late at night and debate if we should refer to this new ‘hypertext’ connected world as the World Wide Web or the Internet. We worked on projects for Apple (the Newton - circa 1991) and designed early interfaces for mobile digital assistants. I got a job as the head of Product Management at Prodigy Internet. As VP Interactive Services for American Express I launched the original AmericanExpress.com. I was hired as VP of Product Management for a small Israeli search technology startup that was ultimately bought by Google. It was a thrilling time. But something more fulfilling was to come.

My wife, Celeste and I were new parents living in Manhattan. Digital photography was just emerging as a thing and I (always looking for a reason to purchase the latest and greatest tech), would casually take photos of my first muse, our first born, Miles, held up in front of iconic NYC locations. We called the impromptu series "Miles Above New York". ⁠

Miles Above New York

(an early/experimental digital photography project for a new Manhattan father - 2001)

Cutting edge technology at the time - 3 Megapixels. (The iPhone 13 now has 12.)
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And on September 4, 2001 I snapped this little photo.⁠ It was ‘fun but whatever’ and I left it to sit on my hard drive. Just another moment to be perpetually archived.

One week to the day later (aka 9/11), with the world I knew literally crashing down around me, millions of people gained a sudden understanding of how temporary and fleeting all that we know of the world actually is. I went back to my desk to find the image that I had dismissed as ‘whatever’ a week earlier. And there, in that moment, I learned the true value of a photograph. And it changed the course of my life.⁠
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I had always walked through life blindly believing that everything around us will be there forever. But on that day in 2001, I looked with freshly unveiled eyes at the image I had taken just seven days prior. Knowing those permanent and immovable buildings were no longer, that so many people were no longer… I realized that all of the pillars that make up our world are all only temporary. ...that everything around us is but a memory waiting to be forgotten. ⁠It made me profoundly sad.
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And yet, I also realized that with each photograph, there is a universal human hope that things can last just a little longer. Every image we take actually succeeds in extending the life of the ephemeral - the people, the things, the fleeting moment. A photograph isn't simply a picture of a person or a thing, it's a preservation of time. And in a world where everything changes - always and forever - wouldn't the greatest gift we could give be a little more time with the people, feelings, and moments that we cherish?⁠
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That was reason enough for me to walk away from my career and become a professional photographer:

I wanted to give the gift of time.⁠