Brian Fowler

Photo: Kris Kathmann

Photo Op

Community-embedded Mankato owner creates team atmosphere and reinvents business to match the times.

Brian Fowler is a storyteller—and not only with a camera. He shuts off his cell phone, which has a ring tone of James Brown’s line “I feel good,” and begins to answer a question about where he grew up with a description of his great-great-grandfather’s 1868 homestead claim. During the interview, he throws out a jaw-dropping line about getting a call from the White House to shoot photos of then-President George W. Bush. Fowler veers right past that explanation to talk about employees, friends—such as Free Press photographer John Cross—and wife Karen and three daughters, who work with him.

Fowler’s not only a storyteller in his work, but also sometimes about it. Although admitting people say he’s a workaholic, he claims, “I have fooled everybody for 30 years when they think I’ve worked.” The 100 hours a week he’s involved in his dual business, Quality 1 Hr Foto and SPX Sports and Design, are simply too fun of a ride to qualify as labor. For Fowler, it’s about enjoying the moment, but even more so, doing what’s right for people, including customers and employees.

“This company isn’t about one person, it’s about a team, and much of it is family,” Fowler says. “When I hire people, they become family. When I go on a shoot with an employee, and someone asks if this is one of my kids, I say,  ‘I’ll claim him.’”

Most of the 20 employees, whose duties often overlap, work in the store located in Midwest Plaza on Caledonia Street, west of Madison East Center on Mankato’s hilltop. Employees do custom framing, process photos (Fowler doesn’t call them “pix”), assist customers or do graphic design and installation. Including Fowler, there are four full-time photographers, with one specializing in portrait photography. Sports photography is an important aspect of the business, one Fowler relishes because it gets him out with people and into the action.

“Every sports event we go to, we don’t know how it will come out,” he says. “We get involved in so many lives, capturing life as it happens. You never know what lurks around the next corner. I used to be out every night shooting sports. I’m a real hands-on person, and I enjoy every aspect of what I do. Every job or customer for us is a new experience, a different need and journey. It’s a metaphor for life. Over time, we’ve watched (and photographed) young families grow up, graduate, get married, and have their own children.

I just like being in the public with people, putting their graphics on the wall.”

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Growing up on a Faribault County farm, Fowler considered his family sharecroppers, despite the fact his great-great-grandfather Harry Holmes Fowler came from Connecticut in 1868, staked a homestead claim, and built a sod hut and then a log cabin.

He says, “There was a second farm near Winnebago (now a Century Farm), and my Grandpa Chuck farmed both farms. My father inherited the farm near Winnebago from an aunt, and had crops and livestock there. We also rented a farm near Guckeen, where we had dairy (I grew up milking cows), beef, horses, chickens, ducks and hogs. We always checked up on the older couple with whom we sharecropped. My dad taught us it’s not about us. He was very giving, and taught us to help others out.”

Fowler’s eyes mist over recalling the neighborly reciprocity his family experienced. “When my dad developed a heart problem, most of my brothers were gone from the farm, and I was in the field on a tractor. When I turned it around, I saw a whole row of tractors coming down the road to help. That’s what life’s about.”

Any spare time in Fowler’s childhood was spent outdoors, hunting and fishing, or seeing what he could construct with an erector set. He didn’t own a camera until his mid teens. He says, “I wanted to record those moments, nature and the people I was with,” he says, “so I ought a single lens reflex camera for $275, even though my dad thought it wasn’t a good investment. But he changed his mind.” Fowler taught himself about cameras and photography by reading. “It’s more about lighting, composition, and angle than equipment,” he explains. He set up a home dark room, and, “I’d print out something in the darkroom for several hours, but it felt like ten minutes.”

As a student at Granada-Huntley High School, Fowler learned another lesson while cleaning the district’s schools during the summer. “We had a friend who was a janitor there, so I got a job doing things like cleaning gum off desks,” he says. “That taught me respect for property.” He spent a couple of summers working in Blue Earth, first at Green Giant before assembling mobile homes for a Blue Earth company.

After graduating in 1978, Fowler enrolled at Rochester Community College to study geology, biology and chemistry, and plan for a conservation officer career. He changed his career plans and left school, but still uses what he learned. “The chemistry is important for doing photo finishing in an environmentally friendly way,” he says. “There weren’t many openings for conservation officers and I was already working as a freelance photographer for the school newspaper and the city newspaper. I was offered my first real. full-time job at a six-hour photo lab in Fairmont. It was same-day service. One-hour wasn’t even on the horizon.”

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The horizon changed in 1982, when 23-year-old Fowler received a call from Jim Anton, asking him to manage a new business in Mankato. Fowler’s decision to accept was an easy one.

“Karen was studying marketing at what is now South Central College in Mankato, but I was done with college and had worked two years at same-day processing,” Fowler explains. “After the first year, I had an opportunity to buy in and replace Gregg Andersen (a Mankato photographer) as Jim Anton’s partner. We incorporated as Quality 1 Hr Foto, and spent a lot of time and money educating people that it was a quality product that would last. We started with 1,500 square feet on Caledonia and put in a drive-thru, a revolutionary idea at the time. In 1985 we took on more space and added custom framing and portraits. We’ve had to keep reinventing ourselves. We were doing some sports photography in the early 2000s, and officially began SPX Sports in 2003, as a school internship project of my daughter Bridget.”

Two years ago, Fowler bought out Anton and became sole owner. Through the years, he’s added framed prints, scrap-booking materials, and novelty items such as a clock face imprinted with a photo that Fowler took in Wyoming’s Grand Teton Mountains. There also are team photos, with each team member photographed individually, in various poses, and a seamless, composite team shot. A soccer ball sports the photo of a girl, along with her game statistics. There are the usual certificates, T-shirts, golf towels, bag tags, coasters, coffee cups, dog dishes, helmets, Christmas ornaments, and baseball bats, all awaiting a photo and message. Throughout Minnesota, and other states, there are clinics, hospitals, schools, etc., where plaques, posters, banners, wall coverings, counter wraps and tops, fence mesh, ticket stands, custom display cases, and floor graphics all showcase Fowler’s and his employees’ photographic, computer, and installation talents.

“We take the design the client proposes and use a large-scale printer for cloth or vinyl banners,” Fowler says. “Everyone just loves to see themselves and their friends on the wall.”

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In his small, slightly cluttered office, Fowler sits about ten feet away from his daughters, Bridget and Beth, who are just on the other side of a door, eyes fixed on their computer screens.

“Bridget, who has a marketing degree, is also a photographer for the business,” Fowler says. “Beth, who studied business, but learned more from being here, is our operations manager. Our daughter Jessica is an MSU-M student majoring in art and minoring in graphic design and photography. She’s in charge of our social media—Facebook, Twitter, etc. Karen is in charge of customer service, and she does it well. She’s best with customers who are just learning their digital cameras, but her relationship with customers is especially important when a person is grieving and preparing for a funeral. I’ve seen Karen give them a hug when they come in to pick up their order. Ever since 1982, nothing has ever been more important than a project for a person in the pain of mourning. Other clients must understand that this has priority. When we take family portraits, I suggest taking individual head-and-shoulders shots of each person. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to crop someone out of a family photo for an obituary.”

Despite denying his tendency toward workaholism, Fowler arrives at the store between 5 and 5:30 a.m., and usually doesn’t leave before 7 p.m., and often 10. “Although my wife and daughters are with me, ideally, I want them not to work more than 50 hours a week,” he explains. “But they’re like me, and want to go home when the work is done.”

There are the high-adrenaline projects, like covering the Mankato Marathon, NCA tournaments, or the air show, to name a few. When he had the opportunity to be embedded with an MSU ROTC unit at Camp Ripley, however, he gave the assignment to employee A.J. Dahm, who photographed the troops going through training maneuvers. And there was the time in 2004, when Fowler received a call to photograph President George W. Bush, who was running for re-election and campaigning in the area.

“I had done quite a bit of events photography for Republican politicians,” Fowler says, “so I got a call from the White House, with final instructions at 11 p.m. the night before to be at the SMC quarry at a certain time to clear the Secret Service. Bridget was shooting with me that day, and to see her experience something like this was way more of a thrill than being at the event. We took about 6,000 shots, from the very old sitting in lawn chairs, holding small flags, to small children on their fathers’ shoulders. We put them on disks and sent them to the White House. They went through them and picked out a decent selection to put online and sell.”

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There’s a nostalgic side to the man who works with cutting-edge technology. He says, “Very few places still process film, but we do. (The machines for it are no longer made.) I’m still ‘old school.’ I’d slow the technology down a bit. I think kids are missing out on some of the things we had, like the lost art of the darkroom. We could razzle-dazzle people and wow them in the early days of technology, but today it’s commonplace. We’re getting into a disposable world with the more instantaneous digital. We need to not let digital images just sit. Take the pictures further. Put them on the wall or print them out and mail (not email) them to others. We can make books of photos and narrative for families and businesses. We can make photo calendars with birthdays and other dates imprinted on specific days. Photo albums bring memories, smiles, and conversations. It’s like the folder I have of cards my daughters have given to me, kept in a fireproof box. Those cards mean much more than a text message wishing me a Happy Birthday.

“When I was shooting photos in Old Town for the Greater Mankato Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, I saw the city from a different perspective. When you look at those buildings, you can almost put yourself back in time.”

His photographs have been exhibited at the Emy Frentz Art Guild in Mankato, and graced the walls of Orness Plaza in Mankato and Mankato Clinic in St. Peter and New Prague. He also displays and sells images on line.

“I have lived 30 years doing exactly what I want to do,” Fowler says. “I try to live each day with as much integrity as I can. I don’t have a lot of regrets. My biggest accomplishment is getting to where I am today. Tomorrow, it will be getting to where I’ll be tomorrow. Life’s a journey. I want each day to make a difference. Every day I get up and ask ‘How can I make a difference today?’”

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Community Portrait

• Involvement: Greater Mankato Growth, Greater Mankato CVB, business member of Blue Earth County Historical Society, Photographers of America, Photo Marketing Association, volunteer of time and talent to nonprofits and educational institutions.
• Awards: Five-time Kodak Best in Class Photo Imaging Center (one time “Best of the Best”), MSU Philanthropic Award, Greater Mankato CVB Hospitality Award, United Way Unsung Hero, Greater Mankato Tourism Advocate.

Background Shot

1. Childhood family: I grew up on a farm, the fifth of eight children. I learned to work hard and to get along without having a lot. I raised my kids not to find excuses—you just do it.
2. Favorite school subjects: Science, biology and chemistry. Growing up on the farm, I was intrigued by nature and science.
3. Least favorite subject: I wasn’t big on history because I had to memorize lists of dates. I’ve changed my tune because now I know the storytelling of history lets us know who we are.
4. What you wish you had studied: Business classes and psychology, to help understand what makes a person tick.

Current Developments

1. Family: My wife Karen, our three daughters, and a dog that’s my “best friend” and makes me laugh.
2. Hobbies: Hunting—some things are a sacred tradition. Deer hunting is not about the kill; it’s about memories of hunting with Grandpa Chuck, and now with my girls. And there’s our week’s fishing vacation up north, near Cross Lake. Photography is still a hobby and I still like to build things, as I did with the erector set. I weld truss structures for marathon banners.
3. Most valued possession: I love my boat, and there’s that folder filled with cards from my daughters that I keep in a fireproof box.
4. Most valued intangible: My family and my faith. Without God I wouldn’t have my family.
5. Words that describe you: Reflective, tenacious, caring, can-do attitude.
6. If you weren’t in this business: I have lived the last 30 years doing exactly what I want to do. If I couldn’t do that, I’d have a job in nature or the environment.