Page 142 - Demo

142 || FITNESS MAGAZINE || JUNE 2015 || EDITION 1Brian entered the University of Maryland with the anticipation of majoring in engineering, but one semester into school he realized that was not at all what he wanted. The idea of advertising appealed to him so he switched his major to Advertising Design. This was not exactly what he thought it would be. The classes were more like graphic design with an advertising purpose. Having no artistic background, this was totally uncharted territory. Where Brian lacked hand illustration and painting skills, his ability to use the computer as a tool for layout and typography made up for it. After two years at College Park the State made drastic cuts to their curriculum and the Advertising Design program was eliminated. Forced to either switch majors again or leave College Park, Brian decided to transfer to UMBC where they had a graphic design program that was much more computer driven than College Park. The classes that Brian took at UMBC included photography. In this class his love for making images with a camera began with black and white film. This introduction to photography would later serve as the foundation for the world he would enter many years later. After completing his degree in graphic design, Brian went to work for a company called Capital Presentations which he and two other employees would eventually buy and run themselves. Capital served the Federal Government and DC area companies with graphics related services and computer generated visuals. Under their ownership the company transitioned with the rest of the world into website and interactive media development as the landscape of computer graphics continued to evolve. The use of Photoshop, along with most other computer graphics software became Brian%u2019s daily work tools used at Capital. This would also benefit Brian in his later transition to photography in the digital world. After the dot com bust, Brian%u2019s partners wanted to close up shop and go in other directions; but Brian continued to do interactive and web development work for a number of years as a freelancer. Brian continued to take more and more pictures using digital cameras and his favorite subject was his daughter. One day, his wife decided to send him with a friend to Yosemite National Park to take pictures purely for enjoyment. Upon his return the response he received from people was unanimous; this was what he should be doing with his life. The problem was that travel photography was not in the cards with a wife that works and small children. He looked to build his photography career in another direction. People were the direction he chose to go. Photographerwww.landisphotographic.comBy Darcy Tharp