Brent Paull's Short Biography Page

Photographer Brent Paull | Yellowstone-Tetons Fall Wildlife Safari

Biography Brent was born in 1959 in Redwood City, near San Francisco - and raised in Gilroy, California, the second of three children. Brent played all the sports available: tennis, baseball, football, golf, soap box derby racing, snow skiing, etc. His family camped each summer in Yosemite National Park or at Lake Tahoe, and owned a cabin in the redwood forest in Felton, near Santa Cruz. He graduated from Gilroy High in 1978 and went on the next year to play tennis at Gavilan College. After serving a 2-year LDS church mission to Montana, he transferred to, and graduated from, Brigham Young University with a degree in Business Management-Finance. He has lived throughout the west: (Montana) Bozeman, Columbia Falls, Whitefish, Great Falls, Billings, Stevensville, Sidney. (Colorado) Grand Junction. (Utah) Provo, St.George, Logan, Providence. (California) San Jose, Gilroy, Tulare. During his senior year at BYU he and a friend made a trip to Yellowstone National Park in September 1985. That trip led to his first published article and photos. After more than a decade of shooting freelance for magazines he ventured into portrait photography. His strengths as a portrait photographer come from understanding light, composition, and balance - skills he learned as a nature photographer. After 18 years in Utah's Cache Valley, he sold his home and studio and moved to Tulare, CA. Today, he spends most of his time leading photo safaris around the American West and teaching photography. His wife, Jacqueline, and his sons (with their wives and children) have all spent time exploring the vast reaches of the American West.	Yellowstone 2001 Leonard L. Rue III 2003 Actor Dennis Weaver 1987 Wild Horses from Helicopter 2005
Publication Credits His images have been published throughout the United States and in a number of foreign countries including Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. He has had in excess of 1400 publication credits and over 700 commercial image sales as well as 32 published articles and 16 Magazine Covers. Besides magazines and newspapers, his images have appeared in books, online magazines, business brochures, product packaging, professional reports, roadside billboards, nature guides, government reports and brochures, magazine advertising, and in calendars, on credit cards, etc. Currently his stock library of images exceeds 200,000. Publication credits include National Geographic, Outdoor California Magazine, Utah Adventures Magazine, Wild Outdoor World, Peterson's Photographic, Bugle Magazine, Arizona Wildlife, Utah Business, Utah Highways, Audubon's American Birds, Bird Watcher's Digest, Birder's World, Hunting Magazine, Utah Wildlife News, Montana Magazine, Big Sky Journal, Fur-Fish-Game Magazine, St. George Magazine, the Dallas Morning News, the Deseret News, the Herald Journal, Cache Valley Parenting Magazine, the Daily Spectrum, and the Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park Newspaper, Yosemite Visitor's Guide, among others.
Unique Experiences Beyond the credits, Brent has had unique photography experiences that have created a wealth of knowledge for him to draw on in his photography. He has shot air-to-air and air-to-ground in both planes and helicopters. He has shot for numerous government agencies, including: the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Forest Service, the State of California, and the State of Utah. He has shot custom brochure images for snowmobiling, hunting, horseback riding, fishing, hot-air ballooning, and other "people in nature" type photography. Some of his commercial assignments have included the still photography for Hollywood commercials being filmed in Utah. He has spent nearly 1800 days photographing Yellowstone National Park, with over 500 days shooting in Grand Teton National Park and over 300 in Zion National Park. He has shot in 18 national parks, and dozens of national monuments, national wildlife refuges, state parks, and wildlife management areas throughout the American West. He has personally led over 800 photography safaris, photographed over 700 weddings, thousands of families and other portrait clients, and had nearly 200 commercial clients. He is one of the few photography guides that has stuck to his area of expertise his entire professional life - the American West - with an emphasis on wildlife photography. As part of his move in 2008 to California, he has taught photography in 22 California cities through adult classes via their local Parks and Recreation departments, as well as doing over 120 shows for local camera clubs, Audubon Society Groups, Sierra Club groups, and some government organizations. He is a past member of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), NANPA (North American Nature Photographers Association), PPA (Professional Photographers of America), and PSA (Photographic Society of American - Southern California Chapter).