The Worst Advice, I'm Grateful to Have Received.

I am often asked about my path to a career in photography. The short answer - I loved taking my parents’ hand-me-down cameras and wrapping my four frames around what I saw. Little did I know, that was all about perspective. Selective vision by isolating a scene to focus on one area or element.

In High School, I took every class that afforded me access to the darkroom. Photo 1, Photo 2. Yearbook 1, Yearbook 2. Journalism 1, Journalism 2 (including one year as Teacher’s Aide in Photo 1.) When I ran out of excuses, I chose Art as an elective. I could not draw, paint or sculpt, but I didn’t know what else to do to remain close to my favored medium.

My first week in Art felt like a pit in my stomach. I went to Mr. Remington to ask about the large janitorial closet. “If I brought my own equipment, could I convert it to a darkroom instead of art?” He dropped what he was doing, called the principal and said - “Let’s go.’' It happened so fast and I was nowhere near comfortable speaking to more than one person at a time.

“This young man just presented me with a great idea. Brian is a photographer signed up for my art class. He’d like to convert my janitor closet into a darkroom, while still attending as an art student.”

“What about his curriculum?”

“I’ll have him sit in on our brief for the day, then he can translate it into photo essays and projects.”

This action inspired me to nearly forget about the bad advice I’d received two years prior.

I was fifteen, and bored enough to ride my bike out of my way to say hi to my Catholic Confirmation sponsor.

I found him in his garage, creating amazing pieces of 2D art from colored glass — and he looked happier than I had ever seen him look at church. There was something about the whole scene that got me thinking about my future.

"Why don't you do this for a living?" I asked. To me it was the most obvious question in the world.

He looked up from his work and without hesitation, said:

"Never turn your hobby into a career. Because then you'll have to do it… and you'll hate it."

At fifteen years old I was impressionable. He was old enough to be my dad and very confident in his response … I believed him, completely.

I already loved photography. Had loved it for as long as I could remember. But that sentence — delivered with such calm, adult certainty — landed deep in the part of my brain where “highlighter moments” resided. It felt permanent and urgent. I had to change my direction.

When the time came to start thinking about college, I walked into my guidance counselor's office at Pendleton High School with a very specific request:

"I need to find the closest thing to photography… without it being photography."

He paused. Pulled out his reference materials. Looked up at me.

"Chicago, New York, or LA?"

This was 1981. I was a kid from a town of 15,000 people. Portland was "the big city" to me. I thought for a short time, remembered I had relatives somewhere near LA, and said — "Columbia?"

He confirmed it. Columbia College. On Sunset Boulevard. I planned a road trip to check it out in person.

My dear friend and pseudo-brother, Ordway, agreed to make the drive with me — straight through from Pendleton to Thousand Oaks.

We pulled onto Sunset Boulevard and I slowed down as we approached the school. I wanted to take it in — to picture myself there, walking those sidewalks, building a future in this city. We were practically stopped in the middle of the street when, right alongside the campus, we saw a scene that snapped me out of my daydream instantly.

A man — standing outside a fancy purple low-rider — was yelling at a scantily dressed woman. Then he hit her.

My eyes went wide.

"Check it out, Ord — they're filming!"

Ordway yelled - "Brian. I don't see any cameras. KEEP DRIVING."

For context: Ordway was no small or weak person. When he was comfortable, I was comfortable. When he wasn't… When he told me to keep driving… I shifted gears and got the hell out!

My Hollywood ambitions — and the closest-thing-to-photography-without-being-photography plan — ended on Sunset Boulevard that afternoon.

And so began the chapter I would come to privately call my Retail Years.

I won't make you sit through all of it. You can read the full origin story here. The short version: I spent the better part of the next sixteen years managing grocery stores, climbing a ladder I never really wanted to be on, and quietly wondering what my life might have looked like if a glass artist had given me different advice on a random afternoon.

The what-ifs had a way of always coming back to the same answer.

Photography.

Every time … without exception.

About five years into retail, I picked up What Color Is Your Parachute — a book that promised to help people figure out what they were actually meant to do with their lives. I worked through the exercises. I answered the questions honestly.

The journey beyond my fears continued when I met my Studio mentor, Lou Ver Baere. More about that HERE…

Photography … Still!

I used to carry some mild resentment toward that piece of advice. Not toward the man who gave it — his intention was genuinely kind, and for all I know, it was the truest thing he'd ever learned about himself. But the advice was his parachute, not mine.

Here's what I've come to believe: the people who turn their passion into a career and hate it are the ones who stopped doing it for themselves. They let the business strip out the wonder. They let the clients replace the joy.

That can happen. I won't pretend it can't. I didn’t choose an easy craft to earn a comfortable living.

For me — thirty years into running a studio, still picking up a camera with the same reverence I had the first time — it has been a rewarding life. International travel gigs landed me in eight countries, most of which were on my bucket list.

The man in the garage may have been right about his own life, but certainly not about mine.

And Ordway, to his eternal credit, probably saved mine.

If something keeps coming back to you, no matter how many detours you take — that's not a hobby, it’s a calling. Mine had to shout at me until I took a 12 week course with a career counselor I found referenced in the book What Color is Your Parachute.

It’s currently three months from my 30th anniversary. Financially - it’s been a roller-coaster, but rewarding enough to draw some priceless people and experiences into my life.

Brian