O'Brien Photography

O'Brien Photography, founded in 2002 by Michael and Christina O'Brien, specializes in black and white photography of our nation's capital. In a city dominated by federalist and neoclassical architecture, our style fits well with the monuments and structures in Washington DC. Though use of lighting, shading, and composition, we try to capture the es... sence of the capital city and its rich history. With all prints developed in our darkroom, we have full control over the look of our prints, allowing for dramatic scenes. Few O'Brien prints are head-on shots. Instead, we tend to find interesting angles that better communicate the meaning of the subject. Our prints especially make use of shapes and textures to convey different feelings. In this era of digital photography, people are sometimes surprised that we still use film. Yet, we would not be able to produce the same quality prints with a digital camera. For example, one would need a 60 megapixel digital camera to equal the resolution of our medium format camera (35mm film would require a 20 megapixel camera). To put this in perspective, high-end digital cameras cost well over $1,000 and provide only 5-6 megapixels. Another reason we use film is because we like to capture specific moments in time. When you see an O'Brien photograph, you are seeing what we saw the moment we took the picture. We haven't removed objects (such as people, trees, construction equipment), or in any other way manipulated our prints, except for adjusting contrast, and burning and dodging (emphasizing or de-emphasizing different objects by adjusting how much time light hits a particular area of the photo paper). With digital you can change reality, which makes it border on a whole new art form. Michael started to take photography seriously in junior high school. By high school he was winning national awards, working for the local newspaper, and photographing weddings. Having started college as a photography major he improved his technical understanding of the art (he eventually graduated ...Read More