Brien Aho
Co-Founder / Executive Producer
Brien is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and a co-founder of Shoot Off photography workshops. Brien joined the Navy in 1991 and has photographed in 45 countries. As an instructor at Defense Information School for four years he helped mold the future of military photographers.
After graduating from the 2002 Advanced Military Photojournalism program at Newhouse School of Communications, Syracuse University, Brien started working as a combat photojournalist at Combat Camera Atlantic where he completed tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
Brien won over 33 awards to include first place wins six times at the Military Photographer of the Year competition in different categories and won the prestigious Communicator Award for “The Road to Recovery” a photo documentary about burn patients and their ordeal. Former President of the D.C. chapter of the National Association of Naval Photography, Brien produced their annual 4 day photography workshop “The D.C. Shoot Off”.
Brien is also a twenty-year veteran of the “Black Team” at the Eddie Adams Workshop and was a student on the 2003 purple team. Brien has been published in numerous books, magazines and newspapers such as National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Washington Post and the New York Times.
His work appears in many books pertaining to the war in Iraq like the critically acclaimed ‘This Is Our War” and the recently published “War/Photography Images of Armed Conflict and it’s Aftermath”. A proud father of 2 lovely daughters Sophia and Bailey, Brien lives in Austin Texas and is currently working for USDA FSIS as an Audio Visual Production Specialist. Contracted Photographer with Associated Press & Getty Images.