Photos by Brian McWeeney

Sunrise on the River

2011-11-30T18:29:00.001-08:00

Black and white 4x5 film from the shoot will be added later ...

...Here now are some of the black and white images from this shoot. As with all things large format, everything takes more time; more time to prepare, more time to shoot, more time to see the image, and more time to post to my blog. But all of this is not necessarily a bad thing. The mere fact that you don't get to see the image instantly on the back of your camera means you take the time before you shoot to (hopefully) get it right. Since you also only have so much film loaded and in your backpack, means you have to be more selective in what you decide to shoot. It's a much more deliberate process and one in which I am enjoying more and more.

Late Night Interiors in Dallas Texas

2011-10-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

Texas Hill Country Home

2011-02-15T19:55:00.000-08:00

I recently photographed some beautiful Texas Hill Country homes designed by Volpe Designs out of Dripping Springs, Texas. The weather cooperated, the light was great, and the spaces were phenomenal. Here are a few from the one day shoot:

Fresh Cut Hay

2010-08-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, we are still in the dog days of summer here in North Texas. Day in and day out, it has been over 100 degrees, which is to be expected for August but boy does it make it hard to go out and shoot large format!

One thing that is kind of neat during August, is when the hay fields get cut and baled. There's a little luck and timing involved in getting these shots. You have to find the field after it has been cut, and then time it to shoot them when the bales are left in place. If you wait a day or two or try to make it to the weekend, chances are the bales will have scooped up out of the field and stacked along the fences.

I was lucky to get to this field and shoot it. The gate was even left open! I covered myself in bug spray, put on a white t-shirt and hiked out into the field with my gear. In a matter of minutes I was soaking wet from sweat. Going under the black dark cloth to focus didn't help. I shot with a 210mm lens and HP5 film (my regular set-up). And as usual, I plan on shooting this subject matter again with hopes of improving.

Here are two images from my shoot:

The Giving Tree

2010-07-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Well it's been awhile since I posted any new work. The dog days of summer have hit North Texas. One has to get up pretty early to beat the heat and to get any nice light. I managed to revisit a subject matter I shot earlier in the year, a tree stump in a field not too far from downtown Fort Worth.

I thought immediately of the Shel Silverstein book, "The Giving Tree" as soon as I saw this tree. There had to be a story here, some history, a reason why a tree in the middle of an urban field was cut down and part of its trunk left beside it. No construction was taking place; no other trees chopped down. Why this tree?

Tree always interest me as a photographer. They have perfect shape, sometimes some color, aged texture, and history. It's like they have witnessed things come and go in their life. They have provided things for us humans, be it food or firewood, or simply a cool place in their shade. This tree probably did all that. Now it only provides a mystery.

Weeds Project

2010-05-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year in Texas where all kinds of things start sprouting up from the ground. To the uninformed like me, there can be a fine line between wildflowers and weeds. I decided to drive out to a field not very far from my house where a new subdivision was going in. All along the sides of the new gravel roads were wildflowers and weeds. I set up a small studio on the tailgate of my truck, black fabric for a background, the setting sun coming in from the right side for my light, and a clamp holding the weed resting on my tailgate. I flagged off any extra sunlight from the background using my viewing darkcloth attached to parts of the truck.

I hope to get out today and find some more weeds to photograph. The giant purple thistles in a field by a new church look like good candidates. Who knows what else I'll find out there! My only problem is the weather. It's pretty windy and that makes my subject matter blur using the view camera. I might cut down what I want to shoot and bring it back home to shoot it in a more controlled environment.

Travels through Texas

2010-05-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some more black and white shots I recently shot with my 4x5 view camera. Film is Ilford HP5, developer D76, exposed and processed normal.

Small Town Cafe Brazoria, Texas

Water in the Medina River Bandera, Texas

Black and White Trees in Texas

2010-05-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was recently down in the Texas Hill Country and photographed some of my favorite trees with my 4x5 view camera. This one is in a pasture with several century old Live Oak trees, some easily five feet in diameter and reaching one hundred feet tall. It's sometimes hard to get a sense of scale when the trees get this big. You try to show all of the tree in your photo but that just makes them look smaller. For this shot, I came in close to one tree to show the aged details in the trunk, while still including a Live Oak in the background. I hope to go back this location and try photographing these trees again with my view camera and some wide angle lenses.

Technical Information: Shot on Ilford HP5 4x5 film, 210mm lens, exposure 1/8 @ f64.

Enchanted Forest

2010-04-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

I am still shooting black and white film with my view camera. This shot was taken alongside a river in the Texas Hill Country. It had that mysterious unknown element to it that I thought would look nice in black and white. Exposure was tricky as I wanted the dark areas to be dark but readable, and the plants hit with sunlight to not blow out all the details. Recorded exposure was 1/2 second at f32.5 on HP5 film processed normal.

Dog Chow and Choo Choo

2010-04-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

This week, I am continuing my shooting black and white film with a 4x5 view camera. This is a Purina Mills facility near downtown Fort Worth. I got up early one morning to photograph this place. It's a great structure with many photo opportunities. This viewpoint shows the old railroad ties stacked up to the side, with the facility on the right and the grain silos on the left. This morning there was even a train idling, waiting to unload its grain. I will be coming back to this place to photograph it again.

Where it's Made and Where it's Eaten

2010-03-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

I am continuing my practice of shooting with large format black and white film. The first shot is the Bryant Grain elevators in "downtown" Aledo, Texas, located right by the train tracks of course! The second shot is part of the Fort Worth, Texas Livestock show buildings. Shooting with the view camera has been a lot of fun. I love the entire process of pre-visualizing the shot, determining proper exposure, careful composition and focus, and processing the film. In an era of everything digital and "see-it-now", it's kind of refreshing to go "Old School".

I realized when I began to post these two photos that there was a funny connection between them. The grain is made into feed for horses and cattle at the grain elevators, and consumed by them at the livestock buildings.

Aledo Texas in Black and White

2010-03-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

I managed to process some of my black and white film shot recently with my 4x5 view camera. It was quite fun, and processing turned out easier than I thought it would be.

The first shot is "Downtown" Aledo, Texas. It's a church parking lot across the train tracks from the grain elevator. I have shot this before, and will probably shoot it again with my 4x5 and a different lens next time. I don't think I have got the image I have in my head yet. The second shot is ... well, I really don't know what it is but I figured I'd shoot it before it gets bulldozed for some new tract homes. It sits out in a field near the high school, and yes it is leaning!

A small building, a mystery, and a dead end.

2010-03-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

This week I have some more black and white images that I shot on film. These were all shot with a Hasselblad with Tri-X and Plus-X 120 film.

The first image was shot in a brand new subdivision that due to the economy, didn't look like any new houses had been built in it for a long while. The second image was shot in Fort Worth, Texas and has a sense of mystery to me since you are unsure where that walkway will take you beyond that wall. The third image is part of my continuing project of photographing small buildings. It was a generic white metal building with no signage on it, sitting out in the middle of a sleepy, working class neighborhood.

I recently shot some images with my large-format view camera. Hopefully, by next week I'll be able to post some of those new images.

One Tree, Four Seasons

2010-03-05T12:49:00.000-08:00

With Spring on its way, I started thinking about the change in seasons and how hard it is to photograph this concept. I have been shooting this single Pecan tree out in a field here in North Texas for quite some time and am now posting it on the internet for the first time. I shot these images on 35mm transparency film and had them scanned. There is no Photoshop manipulation to these, this is how the scenes looked when I photographed them. Starting from top left and going clockwise is: Summer, Fall, Spring, and of course Winter.

Here's to old man Winter leaving us for awhile and a wonderful, daylight-filled Spring coming. Lot's of photo opportunities.

Small Buildings Project: Winter 2010

2010-02-27T13:22:00.000-08:00

I am continuing my personal photo project of shooting small buildings everywhere I see them. It has been quite fun. This week I am posting two that I shot during our big snowfall event here in North Texas.

Snow in black and white

2010-02-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

Well it snowed here in North Texas, like it pretty much did everywhere around the country! I decided to take out the Hasselblad and shoot some black and white film of the snow around our property. One morning, I managed to get up early, put my warm clothes on, and headed out with a tripod, meter, and some old Plus-X film. It was very quiet outside, about 10-12 inches of snow covered the low lying Yucca plants and weighing down branches of the Cedar trees. I managed to get this shot of a dead scrub oak tree with some big Red Oak trees in the background.

I had to watch my exposure metering carefully, to not underexpose the white snow. In-camera meters tend to make white snow go gray, so using my hand-held incident light meter I was able to avoid that potential problem.

It's been fun shooting film again instead of digital. The process of shooting film makes you slow down, think, compose, meter, think some more, and shoot one or two frames. It's a much more deliberate process than shooting digital, looking at your screen, shooting some more frames, squinting at your screen in the bright snow covered outdoors, and figuring you'll work on the shot later in Photoshop! There's nothing wrong with digital, and I shoot all my commercial jobs with it, but it's fun to go back to my roots in traditional film photography.

Things people throw away

2010-02-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

To me, it's always interesting to find things discarded in the strangest places. I was waiting outside a bank building in Fort Worth, Texas when I saw this. It just seemed kind of strange. The hanger had evidently been there awhile and kind of of become part of the asphalt. I shot this on Tri-X with an old Yashica twin lens reflex camera.

Austin's a bore ... so are you

2010-02-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

I have recently been shooting black and white film again, scanning it, and posting the results here. Well here's an image from my personal files that has never been anywhere other than a few prints for myself and family members. It was shot in downtown Austin, Texas in an alley off Congress Ave. late one Autumn afternoon. I doubt seriously if this location even exists anymore, as Austin went through a crazy growth spurt and all kinds of old buildings were torn down and new ones built downtown in the '90s.

Here's the story behind this photo:

As I was getting ready to shoot this scene, a nicely attired gentleman suddenly appeared from the back door of one of the businesses on Congress Ave. I was working on my exposure, as it was going to be difficult what with the full sun, full shade, and everything in between. No time left to think about it, so I shot the picture. I managed to get off one frame and that was it. That's all I have, just one frame. No alternate angle, no exposure bracketing, no different positioning of the man, no extras. This is it. I thought MAYBE I got something, because as hard as it is to believe, in the pre-digital days you had to wait till after the film was processed to see if you got the shot.

Massage Parlor, Fort Worth Texas

2010-01-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

Continuing my series of small building photography, here is an interesting one on the West side of Fort Worth, Texas. The sign outside it said massage parlor, but that may have been a few years ago as it looks pretty much abandoned now. Not very much here, just interesting how they dressed up an old, white wood framed house with a touch of pink. Very inviting!

Afternoon at the Museum

2010-01-17T15:02:00.000-08:00

I recently took some black and white film and an old twin lens reflex camera out to the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. It was a late afternoon in October, the light was starting to get low in the sky like it does in winter, but there are still leaves in the trees so it wasn't too contrasty. The tree shot was in a great open space between the Kimbell and the Amon Carter Museum, a space to enjoy nature's works of art after seeing man's works of art. The door is on the side of the Kimbell Museum, the museum designed by architect Louis Kahn. There's still something special about black and white film that digital doesn't quite have.

Interior Photography Podcast

2010-01-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

The internet is an amazing thing isn't it? A photographer named Mike Miriello out of Virginia, saw some of my work in a Better Homes and Gardens issue and liked the way I lit the interiors.

He has a website called realestatephotographypodcast.com and asked me if I would do a podcast interview with him. It's all about my approach to lighting and how I work in general with magazines and homeowners. If you'd like to hear me talk about interior photography, now's your chance.

interview on interior photography

It's always kind of strange to hear your voice recorded. "Is that the way I really sound?" Mike did a great job asking questions and keeping things moving along. Everything was done via Skype, which I have to say was easy to set up and use, free, and sounded pretty good. If you can get past all my boring moments, there are a few nice things to glean out of it. My thanks to Mike Miriello.

Next week I start teaching a photography course at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). It's part of their ever-growing continuing education program. I'm very excited about working in this new area of my photography, and will post afterwards how well things went ...

Christmas Interior Shoot

2010-01-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

I recently photographed a house for a Christmas story for Veranda magazine. The house was beautifully decorated with vintage ornaments, floral arrangements, custom and antique furniture. The weather was appropriate for a Christmas shoot, as it had snowed the day before. The shoot started at 8AM with equipment unpacking, looking at the scouting shots, mapping out which shots would be done in what order based on the room's orientation to the sun.

I shot with a Hasselblad and Phase One back tethered to my laptop. Lighting was a balance of daylight, room lighting, and strobe lighting. Color accuracy was verified with a Gretag MacBeth color chart. My approach to lighting an interior is to make it feel just like the room is actually lit. If it is a light and bright room, I keep it that way. If the room is dark and moody, same thing.

It was a very busy day as we managed to get 11 shots done, which during the limited daylight hours of winter is hard to do. Everyone on the small crew helped make it a success, including the homeowners who were wonderful. I can't wait to see the photos in the magazine, but I guess I'll have to as they won't appear until the Christmas issue 2010!

Small Buildings Continued

2009-12-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

I am continuing my personal project of photographing small buildings everywhere. This shot was done in "downtown" Aledo, TX. Something in this composition appeals to me, the balance of the two structures in the foreground, the leaning telephone pole, the train track running horizontally across, and the large grain elevator structures in back all seem to go together.

As with so many of my series projects, I don't realize I am shooting a series until I look back at my images and see a pattern develop. While cleaning up my darkroom the other day, I found a series of small buildings I shot in black and white over the past couple of years. I will post them here after scanning them.

Heart O' the Hills Taxidermy Shop, Somewhere Texas

Medina Church of Christ, Medina Texas

Dayton Oil Building, near Brady Texas

Things seen at the beach

2009-12-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

I recently traveled to the Texas coast. The weather wasn't the best, but definitely interesting. There are so many things to photograph, but here are a few of the things I saw.

Wide Open Spaces

2009-09-24T11:09:00.000-07:00

This shot was done last year. At the time I shot it I thought it might be a nice photo, but during the editing and review process somehow it was never chosen. Just recently I was consolidating some hard drives and I came across this image. After processing the raw file and tweaking it a bit, I felt I got across the feeling I had when I shot it; empty, lonely, vast, bright, washed out, and yet beautiful somehow. It was shot in Eastern Idaho as I headed to the Oregon coast from Texas.

Simple Texas Church

2009-09-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

Another image from my ongoing personal photo project. This is a simple rectangular building without any windows on it. It's been empty for years.

Personal photo project

2009-08-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a personal photo project over the summer. It's about the way new subdivisions develop and start to look after they are few years old. These images are from Aledo, TX, a once rural area now becoming a suburb west of DFW. I try to find humor in things, the way a fence is built, or a storage building is added to the backyard. This is an ongoing project with more images to come.

Interior photography for a magazine

2009-07-23T13:07:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is the photography I did for the September issue of Veranda Magazine. It will hit the stands in the next few weeks. It's a gorgeous issue full of wonderful articles and beautiful places and I'm very glad to be a part of it. They are a delight to shoot for, and always do a nice presentation with the photography. The first image made the table of contents page and was shot with exquisite glass pieces from Jan Showers personal collection.

The second image is of George Cameron Nash's apartment in Dallas. I shot this quite some time ago but it's still nice to see it printed. As with all interior shoots for Veranda, this one was shot on film. The place was filled with wonderful daylight.

I really enjoy shooting interiors for magazines, and hope to be doing more in the near future. It's fun to see new places and try to capture on "film" the feeling you get when you walk into the room. I shoot high-end, medium format digital for most of my clients but can also still shoot film if needed. Keep me in mind for your next project!

Interiors in Oklahoma

2009-06-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished a shoot in Oklahoma for Veranda magazine. It was an exquisite house with interior design by Jan Showers. The attention to details showed in every room of the house, from the orientation of the french doors on either side of the living room, to the made to order sisal area carpet in each room. Jan did her usual great work with color, materials, and furniture pieces. She worked side by side with the Style Editor for Veranda, Mary Jane, helping us get the best possible images. The homeowner couldn't have been any nicer putting up with us taking over her house for two days. Other than the summer heat, it was a nice shoot. Here is a sample from the shoot:

I recently learned that I will have two pieces running in the same issue of Veranda in September. When it hits the newsstands in August, I will post it here.

The dog days of summer are here in the DFW area right now. I have a small catalog shoot in July that will be shot inside the studio, so I am looking forward to that! Stay cool.

New photography

2009-05-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year in Texas where weather-wise almost anything can happen. It can be very cool and moist in the morning, followed by hot, dry, and windy in the afternoon, with a torrential downpour in the evening. I took this shot one evening as a change in weather was coming in. The last remnants of sunset scraped across some of these clouds from the southwest.

I try to see things in the ordinary that might otherwise go unseen, sometimes it's clouds in the sky, sometimes it's the shape of a leaf. You might call my photography style traditional or classical, there's no edgy Photoshop work done to whack out an ordinary image and try to make it into something when there's nothing there to start with.

I have added some new images to my flickr page. It's my personal work, things I see everyday. Take a moment to look at them and let me know what you think.

Flowers and Jan Showers

2009-05-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

I completed an editorial shoot this week for Veranda magazine. It was a floral story with Bella Flora providing the flowers and styling, and Jan Showers providing the elegant glass vases, bowls, and lovely environment. The producer and art director on this shoot was my good friend, the talented Mary Jane Ryburn. I can only show you a portion of one shot since the images need to run in Veranda first.

Speaking of Jan Showers, I just learned that one of my photos will be the cover of her new book "Glamorous Rooms" by Abrams Publishing. She is a very talented interior designer, furniture designer, and all around amazing person. The book should be out sometime this Fall.

I am scheduled to shoot a residence designed by Jan next month in Tulsa OK. I always look forward to shooting anything she has done as I know it will be wonderful to photograph.

My new website has received great reviews since we launched it. A lot of new people from around the country have responded saying they like the work and are bookmarking it for future reference. I am always open to meeting new clients and providing them with photography that meets and exceeds their needs.

New website is now live!

2009-04-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

My commercial photography website for interiors and still life in Dallas Texas is now live:
http://www.brianmcweeney.com/

It was not the smoothest of processes, designing a website via e-mails and a phone call, but I think it turned out nice. The portfolios consist of both interiors for magazines and still lifes for advertising and catalog work. I purposefully combined the images to tell a better story.

Take a moment to look at the website and let me know what you like and don't like. It will be updated with new images regularly.

Texas Trees

2009-04-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

I've always had a thing for photographing trees, most of the time they are set in some pretty, picturesque, natural setting. Not this one. This tree was in a field next to where I was camping in Bandera Texas. The sodium-vapor security light from the park lit up the field just after sunset. I thought it would make a nice color contrast between the warmth of the artificial light with the last remnants of twilight in the dark blue sky.

Night Tree

The other trees I photographed in Bandera Texas, are these enormous Live Oak trees. They sit in a pasture between the park and the Medina River, very peaceful, very majestic. It's hard to imagine what these trees have seen come and go in their lifetime. I guess that's why they have such a calming effect on me. "Been there ... done that." These trees are so large, to get all of their branches in the frame, makes them look very far away. Here's two samples of the same shot to give you some size perspective.

Next week I'm doing an editorial shoot on flowers for a national magazine. I'll post some behind the scene shots when I can.

My Scouting Shoot for an Architectural firm

2009-04-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

This week I scouted a hotel lobby for an upcoming shoot. The client is an architecture firm that specializes in re-designing and updating hotels worldwide, and they have this one in Dallas, Texas they need photographed for their portfolio and website/PR uses.

I met the clients at the location on a very dark, pouring down rainy day, so the lobby basically looked like it would if we shot at night. Hopefully it will be full of some diffused daylight for the day of the shoot. Since I have never worked with this client before, this was a great opportunity for me to show them (literally) what I thought would make nice shots for them. It also shows the limits a camera has in framing all the elements they want to fit into a frame. I made a complete set of the scouting images into contact sheets for them to review. This allowed them to share the photos with other involved people at their office, and to decide which specific shots will need to be done.

The day of the shoot I will bring supplemental strobe lighting and shoot tethered to the laptop with a Hasselblad and a Phase One back. On an architectural shoot like this, shooting tethered is great for looking closely at all the elements in the shot like position of chairs/furniture, tangent elements, reflections, light values, people, and how it all fits into a crop. I will post a sample here after the shoot.

I have also have an editorial shoot in the works for Veranda magazine. More details on that next week.

Photos on Flickr

2009-04-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I've setup a Flickr account to share some of my "less commercial" images with everyone. www.flickr.com/photos/brianmcweeneyphoto/
Please visit often as I have a lot of images to upload, many of which have never been seen before. All my images are for sale as rights managed usage or as personal prints.

Grocery store Aledo, Texas

My commercial website is under construction with Livebooks and should go live in a few weeks. It will have a lot of new images and information on the studio.