Brian Lavall Photography

I’m excited I can finally share this news! Three of my photographs, "Iway Sunset Light Trails", "Blackstone River Black and White", and "Point Street Skyline at Blue Hour" are now being featured in the AS220 Galleries Flat File Project.

AS220 is a non-profit community arts organization in Providence, Rhode Island. These three prints will be showcased in the Flat File Project for the next year, and are also available for sale exclusively through the AS220 Art + Editions online shop.

I also did a short Q&A on the AS220 blog. For someone who’s grown up in the Providence area seeing all of the great things AS220 does for our local arts community, I'm excited be a part of it! Thanks to Paris & Neal at AS220 Galleries for the opportunity!

Q&A

This Q&A was originally published on the AS220 blog and has been published here for archival purposes.

1. What is your creative practice? What is the start to your process and where does it go from there?

I'm primarily a landscape and cityscape photographer, so my creative process usually starts with location scouting and planning. If I'm going to shoot in an area I've never been before, I'll use online maps/satellite photos to pre-scout the area. I also figure out the best times of day for that location after taking into account things like sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset times and locations.

I do photography part time and work a different day job, so most of this planning for my Rhode Island/New England shots happens months in advance. This lets me have the info ready, so when the weather and lighting conditions cooperate with my schedule and I find myself at a specific location, I’m ready to go.

When I arrive at a location, I'll start walking around to look for unique compositions. Once I've found the composition I like, I set up my camera gear. For many of my landscapes, this involves setting up the camera on a tripod and adding different filters in front of the lens, although I do shoot handheld quite a bit.

Once everything is ready, I wait for the right moment to capture. I think that the challenge of waiting for that special moment is my favorite part of the creative process of photography. The best photographs tell the story of a single, unique moment in time. That's my goal when I'm creating photographs.

2. What influences you as an artist? And how do those influences translate into your artwork?

I've lived in Southern New England my entire life and I draw much of my inspiration from this place I call home. New England's history and architecture along with the great beaches and landscapes drive much of my passion for photography. Most of my work attempts to capture the beauty of these places.

3. What are you working on now? what direction do you think or hope this new work will take you?

I've been working a lot to expand my techniques and skill set for different types of shoots. In my first five years of landscape shooting, most of my photos were ultra-wide angle landscapes, because I usually tried to capture as much of the scene as possible. In the last year or so, I've really been forcing myself to use different focal lengths, especially more telephoto, to challenge myself compositionally.

One other thing I've recently started experimenting with is timelapse. I got started in visual arts with video production back in high school, then got into photography after college, so timelapse seems like the natural combination of the two. I'm hoping to get back into filmmaking in the next couple years, starting with a short film about Providence.

4. What is one or two dream photographs you wish you could take?

Photographing the Northern Lights has to be at the top of the list. I’d also love to do a National Parks road trip across the country.