
Stephen Montoya
Brian Luenser
Ever since he can remember, Fort Worthian Brian Luenser (pronounced Lin-ser) has been in love with skyscrapers. Whether it’s the tall shadows they cast, the extra shine they give at certain times of the day, or the way sound acoustics bounce off of these structure’s elongated walls, Luenser says he’s all for it. He even hangs his hat in a skyscraper on the 28th floor at The Tower at 500 Throckmorton Street in downtown Fort Worth. And although he’s lived in three various spots in this building over a twenty-year timeframe, Luenser says he’d never live anywhere else.
Chalk this notion up to his time growing up as a kid in Chicago, a city filled with looming skyscrapers. Or it could have something to do with his time in the U.S. Navy where he would frequently hang out of an HS-8 helicopter with a harness to take photos of ships and submarines to later I.D. Either way, Luenser seemed to have a destiny intertwined with both photography and architecture.
These two combined passions have led Luenser to several projects over his tenure in Cowtown, one of which is his gift and lasting legacy to a city he's chronicled for decades. Over the last twenty years or so, Luenser has captured some stunning images of Fort Worth’s architecture, chronicling it as it sits in our age for future generations to use as reference.
“I love doing before and after images,” Luenser says while sitting at a table on the pool deck of The Tower. “I like being able to see how something was and then see another image that reveals its changes.”

Stephen Montoya
This in a nutshell is a great way to explain why Luenser has spent so much time photographing local Fort Worth structures. In essence, Luenser is securing his legacy in the form of chronicled Fort Worth-centric photographs. These images, which he never charges a cent for, are his way of giving back to a city he says has just the right amount of history with the perfect amount of metropolitan charm.
“I don't know, I had something draw me to the city way back when, and I just always felt more comfortable near tall buildings,” he says. “When I was a kid, I had a chance to go up into one of those rangers' towers in the country, and ever since then, I never wanted to come down.”
This is why on any given day of the week, those who follow Luenser on social media will see him post images he’s taken from the 28th floor of his Tower apartment. He’s also actively posting images from the street level of downtown Fort Worth, a concrete labyrinth he wanders in either the late evening or early morning hours.
Retired now for six years, Luenser fills his days with photo and video projects centered around capturing different sections of Cowtown in various lighting scenarios throughout the day. And although he’s been chronicling Fort Worth via photo and video for years, now that he’s retired, Luenser says he’s even busier with new ideas.
“I found after I retired, I slept way less because I'm so excited to wake up every morning. I go to bed thinking, ‘Hey, I think I'll do this. I'll go here, or I'll drone this, or I'll take pictures of that,’ and I'll wake up at 4:30 a.m. in the morning and start,” he says.
Besides being one of the only people in Sundance Square, come 6 a.m. on Sunday morning, Luenser is also being honored for his selfless work next month. On November 8, Luenser will be named Communicator of the Year by the Greater Fort Worth Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for 2024.
“Brian’s beauty shots and carefully curated images have elevated awareness and appreciation of Fort Worth locally and throughout the U.S., contributing to the fabric of our history and the positive growth of our economy,” said nominator Andra Bennett, APR, communications manager for the City of Fort Worth’s Public Events Department.
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Over the years, Luenser has managed to capture stunning sunrises, rainstorms, and even timelapses of some famous downtown structures. To date, Luenser has amassed more than 31,000 followers on his Facebook page and has more than 6 million images of Cowtown on several hard drives that have been asked for by the likes of TCU and UTA so they can create future “Luenser collections.”
To top that off, many Fort Worth PR firms, along with several non-profits have all reaped the benefit of Luenser’s free-of-charge style of photography. Many of his images grace websites, annual reports, HR guidebooks, and other marketing materials.
“I made it my mission to rather than just take pretty pictures, take more architecturally significant pictures to be meaningful a hundred years from now,” he says. “You just never know who will want to compare what a building looked like now, in the future.”
Luenser was taken aback when asked what his thoughts were on his upcoming award.
“I realized it's really more encompassing than verbal,” he says. “I found that about the time I got on Facebook, say around, I don't know, 2003 or something, I found people were interested in the buildings in Fort Worth. And I don’t have any children, so these images are my legacy, they are what I leave behind for the future.”
With his mission clear, Luenser says he readies himself daily to wonder a city he says he feels he has a vested interest in.
“I want people a hundred years from now to see what this city used to look like,” he says. “It is who I am. And so that's been an important part of Fort Worth for me, because I wouldn't do this in any other city. I just wouldn't.”