MOST Magazine Fitness JUN'15 ISSUE NO.2 | Page 142

Photographer

www.landisphotographic.com

By Darcy Tharp

Brian 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.

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FITNESS

M A G A Z I N E || JUNE 2015 || EDITION 1

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’s
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’s
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 tak