Brian Patrick Crean (pronounced Crane) is a landscape photographer based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He has traveled widely throughout the United States and Europe. His most recent series of photographs have been taken in his adopted home state of North Carolina.

After receiving a BA in Philosophy from The University of Dayton in Ohio in 1990, Brian studied with artists Ralph Gilbert at Georgia State University and Art Rosenbaum at The University of Georgia, before completing a MFA in printmaking and sculpture from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1999, where he was the recipient of the Adelaide Fortune Holderness Fellowship.

As the Registrar and Staff Photographer at Etherington Conservation Services (ECS) for almost 20 years, Brian photographed thousands of historic artifacts: including documents signed by George Washington, Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein; prints by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and James McNeil Whistler; and, photographs by Edward Curtis, Gordon Parks, and George Tice.

Since 2020, he has shifted his preservation efforts toward the environment… traveling, collecting, and visiting with landscape photographers Cara Weston and William Clift along the way.  Brian has worked as an arts columnist for the Greensboro News & Record and his loft has been featured in O.Henry Magazine.  He has served on the Greensboro Public Library Board of Trustees, and his personal library includes signed works by Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Bourke-White, Marilyn Bridges, Michael Kenna, and Adger Cowans. In addition to the portfolios presented on this website, an archive of Brian’s philosophical essays and early travel photography may be found at his other website - Stillbook.