Bryan David Griffith taught himself photography by cobbling together his first darkroom in 1996 while enrolled at the University of Michigan.  He went on to earn a degree in engineering, teach outdoor and art workshops at a camp for underprivileged children, and then travel extensively as part of a leading business consulting firm, but the need to make images still burned within him. Growing dissatisfied with the direction corporate life was taking him, Bryan resigned from the firm to follow his heart, risking, and losing, nearly everything before finding success as an independent artist- driving across the country several times a year to sell his photographs at the nation's top juried art fairs and festivals.  His work has won many awards (including consecutive 1st place prizes at the Sausalito Art Festival, ranked the #1 juried art fair in America) and is held in several collections, but he is most proud of the thousands of ordinary people who have chosen to support his work by displaying it in their homes.  Bryan currently resides in Flagstaff, Arizona with his wife, fiber artist Tasha Miller Griffith.


ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is about slowing down and noticing beauty in the world, especially that which is in danger of being lost or taken for granted.  My work is less about a subject and more about a way of seeing that subject, less about a landscape and more about a feeling of being in that landscape.  I photograph ordinary things like fallen leaves, winter skies, or rusted rail cars because I believe that everything has a story to tell, if only we stop and listen.  I create dynamic landscapes that try to pull you into the image, that try to re-create the essential human experience of being in awe of and in rhythm with the heartbeat of the natural landscape- a fading heartbeat that we must preserve, if not for the planet, then for the soul.  Most of all, I want my work to remind you to leave the computer, turn off the television, open a window, and smile at the warm gift of sunlight on your face.  For those who appreciate that kind of everyday wonder in the world will surely conserve it for their children.

The message of my work also applies to its creation.  For every exposure I make, I spend many more days in the field just observing, waiting for that rare moment when season, time, and weather add up to just the right light.  I rely on creative vision, practice, patience, and luck- not digital enhancement, combined exposures, filters, or other gimmicks.

I use basic “old-fashioned” large-format sheet film cameras without electronics.  These cameras are much larger, slower, and more difficult to operate than 35mm cameras, but produce incredibly detailed, nuanced images unattainable by any other means.  I currently print on Fuji’s crystal archive emulsion processed in RA-4 chemistry.   While the world of photography is changing, I believe my process still produces the finest prints possible.  My goal will always be the same: to inspire people to slow down and appreciate the world around them.