Some people have the ability to look at the world in a unique way. Vincent Brady is certainly one of them. Brady, however, has the tremendous ability to share his view of the world around us through his camera’s lens.
Specializing in what can be described as 360-degree time-lapse photography, Brady’s images challenge the viewer’s grasp of perspective.
He said his work often reminds people of Vincent Van Gogh, at least he hears that comparison in a lot of comments viewers leave him online.
“I actually used to think it was a little annoying, but then I did some research on Van Gogh and now I actually appreciate his whole body of work,” Brady said. “I welcome those comments now … we both might be a little crazy.”
Brady’s work will be featured Saturday, Dec. 6 at Windwalker Arts and Underground Gallery during a special gallery opening that combines his work with that of his friend Brandon McCoy, a local acoustic musician.
Windwalker has become home base for Brady, who is originally from Grand Ledge. He stumbled on to the Charlotte gallery at the urging of a friend from Lansing Community College.
Richard Turbin, owner of Windwalker, said Brady’s photography is unlike any he’s seen before.
“Vincent’s the first photographer that I’ve come across with the innate ability to be so visually outside of the box,” Turbin said. “He has the ability to create a real still image taken from the planet Earth that looks like it could be taken from any planet in the solar system.”
Brady received an associate’s degree in photography from LCC just two years ago. Since then, the 26 year old has been traveling the world in search of the next great shot. He started earning national recognition with his collection of time-lapse photos of fireflies, which he took at the Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. The time-lapse videos he and McCoy have created from his images have received more than a million views on YouTube. The time-lapse video of his firefly photos was even picked up and shared online by National Geographic.
Most recently, Brady spent five weeks in Iceland trying to capture the perfect image of the Aurora Borealis. It took all five of those weeks to capture 10 images he could be pleased with.
“All of the travel brochures you read tell you not to go to Iceland just to see Auroras, find something else to do and let the Auroras be a bonus,” he said. “It’s true. It gets cloudy for four or five days at a time. So you have to wait for the right Aurora show. It can be daunting.”
With persistence, though, he captured some visually stunning and mind-bending shots using a four-camera, 360-degree rig he put together to be able to create his signature style. Brady discovered his unique style after getting a wide-angle lens that he said covers a lot of ground, so he started experimenting.
“I was shooting 360 panoramas in the day time then at night I was doing these long exposures of star trails in the sky around Grand Ledge and I kind of got the idea to put the concepts together,” Brady said. “There are very few people dedicated to the 360 nightscape shooting.”
The Dec. 6 gallery opening begins at 6 p.m. at Windwalker Art and Underground Gallery, located at 125 S. Cochran Avenue in downtown Charlotte. McCoy, whose music is featured in all of Brady’s time-lapse videos, will take the stage around 8 p.m.
To see more of Brady’s work, visit www.vincentbrady.com or find him on Facebook at Vincent Brady Photo.Vincent Brady1