BRIGGS’-EYE VIEW

Bedtime stories opened Brian Briggs’ young eyes to the world of visual storytelling and often enlarged them to orbs of wide-eyed wonderment, ruining the primary objective of the nighttime custom—sleep inducement.

His late mother, Jane Davidson, an artist of impressionism, would read books by illustrator/ painter/author Howard Pyle and others to Brian at their home in New York. Pyle’s vivid illustrations stirred and inspired and caffeinated Jane’s tucked-in son.

“They were fairy tales, sort of,” recalls Briggs, a longtime commercial photographer and a former Lake Forest resident. “Mom read to me and showed me the pages of artwork when I was 4, 5, and 6 years old. Pyle’s works influenced me greatly. So did the art of Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, and Arthur Rackham. The romance of storytelling through paintings, drawings, or photographs has always excited me.

“I love pouring myself into photography.”

And now, more than ever, fuel into his pickup truck, a custom Ram 1500 that transports him and his business partner, Heather Putman, along with an array of high-end photography gear, to shoots all over the country. Briggs’ scads of lighting equipment could illuminate a small village at midnight. Have studio, will travel. For days and days.

Briggs figures 75 percent of his annual workload requires road trips from his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

He launched Brian Briggs Photography in 2001. His specialty is editorial storytelling via clicking, followed closely by producing striking portraits of business folks, particularly wealth management professionals. But he also has a keen eye for capturing the essence of models, actors, artists, chefs, and healthcare and fitness employees. Got a heartbeat? Good. You’re probably a Briggs-worthy subject.

Briggs’ work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Barron’s, Architectural Digest, among other national outlets, and on the covers of magazines in San Francisco, Austin, Texas, Chicago, and Chicago suburbs, including all JWC Media books—Sheridan Road, Forest & Bluff, Country, and Hinsdale Living.

He served as chief photographer of Forest & Bluff from 2003 to 2007, and held the same position with Sheridan Road.

“What I love about what I do is creating a look, a feeling, a mood for the subject I’m photographing,” Briggs says. “There are a number of ways to do that, beginning with a question. As a photographer looking to be a business storyteller, for example, I usually ask each, ‘What are some of the messages you’d like to convey to your target audience through your portrait?’ I’ve heard. ‘Trustworthiness.’ I’ve heard, ‘Confidence.’ Professionals also want their portraits to project intelligence and empathy.”

Briggs grew up in New York City and attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, where he took classes in calligraphy, silkscreen printing, oil painting, fine art, and charcoal drawing. Photography wasn’t offered.

He bought his first camera sophomore year, after saving paychecks he’d earned while working in a grocery store’s produce department. He pulled down $2 per hour, never having to worry about distending the belly of his piggy bank. The camera cost $135; he also purchased a snappy lens for $60.

“I discovered photography after realizing painting didn’t speak to me,” Briggs says. “I took portraits of teachers and fellow students in high school.”

He joined the U.S. Air Force, completing stints in San Antonio and downstate Rantoul before serving, at the age of 20, as a Minuteman missile specialist in Minot, North Dakota.

“I was a New York City kid in North Dakota, still interested in photography,” Briggs says. “I ordered about 500 business cards up there, with ‘Brian Briggs, portrait photographer’ printed on them.”

Briggs’ sister, Tina, later urged him to give modeling a try in New York. Brian posed for photos that would appear in GQ and department stores’ catalogues, but he wasn’t entirely focused on looking sharp in front of cameras.

“I paid attention, while modeling, to what the best photographers in New York were doing,” says Briggs, who continued to snap photos between modeling gigs. “I watched how they used lights and other behind-the-scenes things. Remember, digital photography didn’t exist back then. I learned a lot.”

Briggs found out that the typical road to becoming one of New York’s finest lensmen required the willingness to accept income— for around 10 years—as a photographer’s assistant. But that hourly wage was exactly $2 less than the one earned by a produce department worker.

Or $0 per hour.

“I had to learn photography the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps way,” Briggs says. “I observed photographers and read all about the craft in books. I bought big books, books on lighting, beautiful art books. I studied them. Books on photography were my teachers. I once got audited, for five days, because the IRS questioned my tax write-offs. I showed the auditor all of my photography books.”

Briggs also enlightened the auditor.

“He told me, ‘I get it,’” Briggs recalls. “I’d proved that I received a version of formal training through books. Books are acceptable as educators in the eyes of the IRS.”

Briggs attended the Art Students League of New York and the Parsons School of Design in New York, as well as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He and his wife, Louisa Guthrie, lived in Lake Forest—“A sweet, safe town,” Mr. Briggs says—for more than two decades. Their children, Jack and Grace, are Lake Forest High School graduates. Jack owns a degree in screenwriting and works as an actor. Grace, a Brooklynite, owns an advertising firm and works as a flight attendant on private jets.

“She’s a nomad, like I am,” Briggs says.

Briggs’ working Photography Tour in November started in the West Chester area and motored to Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, Denver, and cities in California. In 2022 he clicked away at subjects in four Florida cities before enjoying a well-deserved hiatus in Cuba.

“Old cars fascinate me,” Briggs says. “I took photos of such autos in Cuba, in addition to old bookstores and other buildings. Cuban architecture, in general, is quite appealing.

“I love exploring with my camera.”

Briggs wields a 150-megapixel camera these days. That’s top end, that’s an Airbus A380 to an airplane aficionado. He purchased a 12-megapixel (Cessna jet) in 2007, four years after holding a six-megapixel (model airplane) at photo shoots.

His shelves at home support 7,000 books, give or take a tome. But not all of the books are about photography.

“I’m also a history buff,” the ageless Briggs says. “The Revolutionary War, World War II, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill, the world’s greatest business titans—I enjoy reading about all kinds of events and influential figures.

“Did you know,” he continues, “that Samuel Morse, before he invented the Morse code, was a portrait painter, making no money? He was starving.”

To see his work, visit brianbriggsphotography.com.