[1] Brixner was positioned 10,000 yards (9,100 m) away from the explosion and had 50 cameras of varying speeds running from different locations to capture the shot in full motion.

[3] Brixner attended the University of Texas at Austin for four years without earning a degree, then worked and studied photography under Willis W. Waite, who operated a pathology laboratory in El Paso.

In 1936, Brixner worked as a regional photographer with the Soil Conservation Service at its four-state headquarters in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

During World War II, he was hired at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to work on photography problems connected with the Manhattan Project in the Optics Engineering and High Speed Photography Group in Los Alamos under the direction of Professor Julian Mack, the group invented and constructed extremely high speed cameras.

[2][4] Brixner was assigned to shoot movies in 16-millimeter black-and-white film, from every angle and distance and at every available speed, of an unknown event beginning with the brightest flash ever produced on Earth.

He authored or co-authored over 45 papers describing major developments in camera engineering, optical instrumentation and fabrication techniques.

His optical lens design was used to construct a high resolution telescope mounted on the Mariner 1969 and 1970 spacecraft to Mars.