My name is Brian D. Wallace and I was born in Iowa City, Iowa. I grew up in the Quad-Cities in the city of Davenport, Iowa. I’ve had an interest in taking photos since I was a little kid with my first two cameras being cheap 110 ones, until my junior year of high school in which I was introduced to 35mm SLR cameras by my favorite teacher Betty Christian. She was my high school journalism teacher and was in charge of both the newspaper and yearbook. During my senior year, I was the co-photo editor of the yearbook and photo editor of the newspaper.

During college, I got to photograph a couple games of our CBA professional basketball team the Quad-City Thunder, (which is now folded), and the public relations person liked my work. I ended up being the team photographer for 4 ½ seasons and photographed upcoming NBA stars like Chris Childs of the New York Knicks, Anthony Bowie of the Orlando Magic, and even an NBA hall of famer, George “The Ice Man” Gervin. Some of my photos were pictured in CBA directories and thru the Thunder, I got a picture published on the cover of the national newspaper USA Today, and one in a magazine called Sports Spectrum.

While shooting CBA basketball games in town, I also did fun pictures for myself. I dropped off some photos at one of our Chamber of Commerce offices, and I shortly had a call to have some images sent to a book writer in the area. One was used as a co-cover shot on a book called Fishing The Mississippi by Jim Ocker. This was the first time I have had anything published on a book cover and was really happy since I was still a college student at the time.

I also managed to get myself into a world title fight that was held in Davenport between Davenport’s Michael “Second To”  Nunn (middle-weight champion at the time) and Ann Arbor Michigan’s James “Lights Out” Toney. It was televised on boxing pay-per-view TVKO, and was the very first time I had shot the sport. There were a lot of fights on the card with the main one being the Nunn-Toney bout. I had some nice photos and I sent them into 3 boxing magazines, in which a couple got published in Boxing Scene magazine.

One of my other loves besides photography is music and radio. I was an intern at a local top 40 station and ended up working as a part-time on-air disc jockey. Since I had photographic skills, I pointed that out to the program director and became the station photographer. I took pictures at station events and concerts we put on. Some of the stars I photographed include Color Me Badd, Go West, Culture Beat, Aaron Neville, Expose, and Rush just to name a few. There are publications in the radio business, and one of the biggest ones is Hitmakers. Our station, WPXR-FM, Power 98.9 (now it is called All Hit 98.9 FM) was featured one month. I got to shoot the picture!

I later got out of radio and met the owner of a local sports magazine called the Quad Cities Sports Connection (QCSC, which is no longer as of Jan. 2001). We covered lots of sports events in the area including the Quad-City River Bandits (minor league pro baseball), Quad-City Thunder (CBA pro basketball), Quad-City Mallards (UHL minor league pro hockey), Quad-City Steamwheelers (Af2 pro football) our PGA tournament the John Deere Classic, NBA and NHL exhibitions, and WWF/WCW contests.

Shooting for the QCSC I got to shoot NFL training camps of the Chicago Bears, St. Louis Rams, and New Orleans Saints; as well as a Bears vs. Saints regular season game in Chicago. We covered a Chicago Blackhawks vs. Dallas Stars regular season NHL game in Chicago since Chris Chelios of the Blackhawks is a brother to a player of our local hockey team (at the time). Sports celebrities photographed while shooting for the QCSC include: Walter Payton, Tony Dorsett, Roger Craig, Pete Rose, Ryne Sandburg, Kurt Warner, Chris Chelios, Mike Modano and Tiger Woods to name a few.

I also covered Extreme Challenge fights in which almost anything is allowed. These can be very gross with lots of blood. Some fights can be really long and go into overtime, and some can last just a few seconds. I had a cover shot on a magazine out of New York called Full Contact Fighter, which covers such events. This was my first cover shot on any sports publication and I was extremely excited.

Since the QCSC is not around anymore I photographed the country group the Dixie Chicks here in town. I got to shoot their Meet-And-Greet for Sony Music of Nashville, Tennessee. I can shoot concerts and sports, and my bio you have just read is proof of what I can do. I look forward to hearing from you and taking some quality pictures for you.