Russ McConnell has been a commercial photographer for 25 years. He ran a successful commercial photography business in NY for 10 years where he specialized in advertising and editorial people work, winning him numerous awards.
Russ came to Brooks Institute in 1995 and his commercial work soon shifted primarily to architecture, which he now teaches along with advanced advertising courses. Russ has had a number of architectural photography magazine covers including six issues of Santa Barbara magazine, This Old House magazine, and most recently 2 covers of Log Home Living magazine.
Russ tries to push the digital envelope and completed a totally digital sabbatical to New Zealand, the Cook Islands and Tahiti, the results being an award-winning exhibition of digital prints entitled "Tales of the South Pacific". He also experiments heavily in the incorporation of digital into his architectural photography and in doing so has recently created an Advanced Architectural Photography class for Brooks and even had one of his digital class demonstrations published in Popular Photography.
Russ also serves as the Gallery Director at Brooks Institute and runs "Gallery 27," a new gallery space in downtown Santa Barbara within Brooks' Cota Street campus. Russ utilized this position as well as his past experience photographing people to create and direct the Santa Barbara Heart Gallery, www.sbheartgallery.org, which helps raise awareness of the need for foster and adoptive parents in Santa Barbara County.
