Brian James Winckler

I began taking photos with intent at the age of 7.  In those early years, it was mostly polaroids and point and shoot cameras.  I took pictures of grandma's dogs, cousins, and family vacations.  But when I started high school, I enrolled in a photography class and began my formal training at the age of 14.  My high school photography teacher saw something in my work and suggested that I should consider a career in photography and go to photography school to further my training.  Not realizing that was even a thing, I was excited that this was an option!  Fast forward a few years and I enrolled at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara to study Illustration and Advertising photography and earned my Bachelors degree graduating in 1998.  Deciding at the age of 10 that I would one day live in Santa Barbara, I was saddened to have to leave after graduation to pursue the life of a commercial photographer.  I knew I'd be back one day but times were different and Santa Barbara couldn't support my job choice.  So I was off to LA (back where I started from) and was sucked into a life of working in Hollywood.  As a young photographer I'd take what I could get all whilst pushing for the work I wanted.  I had a steady gig shooting food and products but that wasn't where I wanted to be.  I pushed hard to get work taking portraits of interesting people.  I started shooting editorial portraits of celebrities for magazines and started working in the entertainment business.  I found myself photographing movie stars, TV stars, directors, producers, famous cinematographers, and anyone else associated with the business worthy of clients needing photographs of them.  Eventually my desires to shoot more fashion work led me to move to New York City where I pursued just that.  Although that was my intent with my move to NYC, somehow someone offered me work as a cinematographer and my 2nd life as a cinematographer started to take off.  From that point, my cinematography work exploded as I filmed show after show after show.  After a few years of living in the cold and now desperately wanting to go home and live in the sunshine and warmth again, I moved back to LA continuing my ventures in television filming shows airing on HGTV, NBC, ABC, Discovery, DIY, Netflix, Roku, We, AMC, Max, TLC and E! to name a few.  My past and present still photography clients include HGTV, NBC, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Vons, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Macy's, Emmy Magazine, InStyle, Movieline, Hollywood life magazine, and Fredericks of Hollywood to name drop a few more.  I received the West Coast publishing associations "Portrait of the Year" award for my portraits of Andy Dick.  I was nominated for an Emmy for the show "A Very Brady Renovation" on HGTV, won an OOTY award for best film for commercials I did for Astra Zeneca and was also nominated for two other awards for that same campaign including the coveted  Clio award.  In 2021, after surviving the pandemic, it was clear to me that the time was now to follow my dreams and move back to Santa Barbara.  I sold my house in LA, packed up the kiddos, and moved back up to Santa Barbara to live a better life up here with my kids.  Although I still have business interests in LA and around the world, I am now offering my skills to the local community and bringing the same passion and creative abilities I have used to make real estate and home shows over the past 15 years to the local market.   And of course living this wonderful life in Santa Barbara.  I don't want to be any where else!  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Roll the credits please...