Verona photographer honored to be included in State Museum of Pennsylvania exhibit

When Tony Brandstetter was 7 years old back in 1967, his mom would give him $1.25 for the local drugstore in the Morningside neighborhood he called home.

But instead of candy he had another purchase in mind — photos.

"My family had a Kodak Brownie camera," says Brandstetter, a Verona resident. "I would take close-up photos of my toy cars and race to get them developed in black and white at the drug store. I could hardly wait the week it took to get the photos back to see how I had done."

Even a birth defect that left him legally blind in one eye never deterred his drive to capture images.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Brandstetter, 55, set his sights on Manhattan but had a reality check.

"I quickly found out that it was hard to support yourself on a photographer's salary in NYC, so I was forced to find more conventional employment, and banking was a logical choice," says Brandstetter, now employed by PNC Bank.

His lifelong passion for photography has endured, and Brandstetter's photography recently was accepted into the State Museum of Pennsylvania as part of "Pennsylvania Modern: A Juried Photography Exhibition of Midcentury Modern Architecture," which is showing through February 2016. He was the only photographer selected from Allegheny County.

His photograph of 4 Gateway Center in Downtown Pittsburgh was selected. He says photography is an "expensive hobby with extreme gratification."

"My work is being displayed alongside professional photographers, and I am honored," Brandstetter says. "When I visited Harrisburg and looked all around at the artwork, I got the chills."

The mid-century modern architectural years in the United States spanned from 1933 to 1965.

This photography exhibit honors iconic modern architecture "hidden in plain sight" throughout the commonwealth.

"Pittsburgh has a lot of examples of this style due to the city experiencing a tremendous renaissance," Brandstetter says. "It was a Sunday morning and I was tooling around Pittsburgh and I noticed the PPG building reflected in the glass of 4 Gateway, and the rest is history."

4 Gateway was constructed in 1960. Brandstetter has also exhibited at Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and has been published in Shutterbug Magazine. Always his own worst critic, Brandstetter says these days he "feels much better about his work and tends not to be as critical evaluating his work."

Brandstetter loves Pittsburgh's "endless subject matter," he says.

"I think we live in a beautiful city and I photograph her every chance I get," Brandstetter says.

He prides himself on diversity in his subject matter.

"I am involved in landscape, portrait, animal, architecture and urban photography," he says. "But my specialty is in Civil War re-enactment and infrared photography."

But in 2015, the view through the lens was fading for Brandstetter.

"I was diagnosed with cataracts this year, and one month before my surgery my eyesight was almost completely gone — I couldn't recognize people's faces," Brandstetter says. "The surgery went well and I am amazed at the vision I have today."

Joyce Hanz is a contributing writer for the Tribune-Review.

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Source: Verona photographer honored to be included in State Museum of Pennsylvania exhibit