Brian Kosoff

Brian Kosoff (born 1957) is a photographer from New York who has had a successful career working as both a commercial and fine arts photographer. While still in his teens, Mr. Kosoff began capturing images of urban landscapes, a genre that is indicative of his later work. However, prior to making landscape images, he pursued a career in commercial photography doing work for Fortune 500 clients and winning the most prestigious awards in the advertising industry.

In 2002 he opted to devote himself solely to producing personal work and he has had exhibitions of his work throughout the United States. In addition to writing articles for magazines and newspapers, he has also been interviewed or written about in a variety of publications. Kosoff states, “While photography is inherently a two-dimensional medium, incorporating only height and width, I work to include two other dimensions: depth and time." A critic for the Dallas Morning News similarly noted that his images are “example[s] of two-dimensional work that operate with magic akin to the three-dimensional shimmer of rolling mercury."

Kosoff credits Irving Penn as an inspiration for his work. Says he, “Penn is the photographer who I have the most respect for over all. He was a great still life shooter, as well as great at fashion and portrait. I know of no one who can do all of those things equally as well. And as far as still life goes, he was the best.” Kosoff worked as an assistant for Penn and other accomplished photographers, including Arnold Newman. The latter is widely known for his environmental portraiture. Early in Kosoff’s career he was also inspired by Duane Michals who gave Kosoff’s work positive reviews and offered advice he never forgot, ”Your best work will always be the work that means the most to you.”

Early life

Mr. Kosoff was born in New York City and spent his early years in Brooklyn. At age 15 he was introduced to photography by an uncle who was an avid hobbyist. Kosoff subsequently took classes in high school, honed his craft and discovered that he enjoyed the entire process of making images, from shooting to printing. Kosoff has noted that his “high school had a serious art department… which gave me an opportunity to study sculpture. I made work out of stone with a hammer and a chisel and, to his credit, my teacher insisted on excellent work. My school had one or two National Scholastics gold medal winners every year, which is remarkable for any school.”

During his senior year of high school, he began an internship that allowed him to assist several Manhattan-based editorial and advertising photographers. During his subsequent studies at the School of Visual Arts, he continued to work as a photographer’s assistant and was encouraged at age eighteen to bring his portfolio to a newspaper and a gallery. This resulted in assignments for the “Village Voice” and the first solo exhibition of his photographic work at Third Eye Gallery. The exhibition warranted acknowledgement on the “short list” in The New York Times for recommended shows. As a result, he opted to leave school and pursue photographic assignments, and while still in his teens his first magazine assignment, for New York Magazine.

Kosoff continued to produce editorial images, including magazine covers before he turned 21, his burgeoning career allowed him to open his own studio on 5th Avenue, in the heart of Manhattan’s photo district.

Commercial career

Starting in the late seventies, Kosoff worked for magazines, corporate clients and advertising agencies. He amassed both a cache of high-profile clients as well as nearly three-dozen national awards, including Clio Awards, one of the highest achievements in the industry. After a highly successful 25-year career in commercial work, Kosoff embarked on a very different path that he found more rewarding. In the late nineties he made a trip to Death Valley and it became a “game changer.” Kosoff, enamored by the sand dunes and mountains of California, was equally intrigued by the peace and serenity they conveyed. He began attempting to capture both the landscapes he saw and the mood they invoked in images — and that emerged as his primary life’s work. In 2001 he joined a co-op gallery in Piermont, New York and after a 24-year absence, he again began to show his personal work. He signed with the Edward Carter Gallery in NY. In short order, other galleries followed. In 2002, at age 44, Kosoff closed his NYC studio to solely pursue personal work, a move he never regretted.

Fine art photography

Kosoff learned valuable skills while producing projects for commercial clients that carried over into his work photographing landscapes. Advertising and corporate have no tolerance for inefficiency or error. Thus, he began applying methodical precision to work he found profoundly moving on an emotional level. His fondness for early-morning light and a “less-is-more” minimalism have been brought to bear upon landscapes that document his lengthy travels, most often in North America and Europe. One writer, Joe Farace, spoke eloquently about Kosoff’s work in a 2012 edition of Shutterbug Magazine. He said the following: “With his pristine compositions Kosoff has created an idealized world that sometimes strays into the allegorical, as in his image of three telephone poles titled ‘Three Crosses’ that may generate internal debate within the viewer. And then it hit me: Kosoff is a poet with a camera, rendering stanzas in grayscale using the rhythm of minimalistic images of pier pilings (‘Pier Pilings with Bird’) where you have to work to see the bird. It’s as if Kosoff wants to make his work accessible while at the same time not too accessible, holding back part of an image’s mystery for discovery and interpretation by the viewer.”

In a review in The Dallas Morning News, Patricia Mora stated, “Brian Kosoff’s images in his show at AfterImage Gallery crackle with the voluptuousness of jewelry. He gives us vision after vision of night skies and planetary rotations coupled with sailing vessels, churches, highways and Southwestern landscapes. Because he photographs at night, he calculates directions, angles, exposure times and weather with the precision of a sailor navigating with an astrolabe.”

The latter review refers to Kosoff’s most recent work, landscape photography depicting night skies and images that include star trails and the stark contours of mountains, roads, telephone wire and train tracks.

Work authored by Brian Kosoff

“Transitioning from Advertising to Fine Arts” A three part series http://blog.livebooks.com/2009/02/from-advertising-to-fine-art-1/

http://blog.livebooks.com/2009/02/from-advertising-to-fine-art-3/

http://blog.livebooks.com/2009/03/from-advertising-to-fine-art-4/

“Getting Gallery Representation, My Experience” http://blog.livebooks.com/2009/04/getting-gallery-representation-you-can-do-it/

“Modern Pictorialism, Printing Techniques for Smooth Tonality”  http://www.shutterbug.com/content/personal-project-modern-pictorialism-printing-techniques-smooth-tonality

“Bones, the Unity of Form and Function” Macmillan Publishing, 1994, all original photography by Brian Kosoff