[citation needed] He was raised initially at Doyleston,[citation needed] before his father moved the family to Arthur's Pass,[3] where his father owned the general store, and Christchurch, where he attended Christchurch Boys' High School.
His early interest in photography was inspired by his aunt Isabel Brake, who exhibited with the Christchurch Photographic Society, and several of his older cousins.
[citation needed] Brake trained with Wellington portrait photographer Spencer Digby from 1945.
Three years later he joined Government filmmaking body the National Film Unit as an assistant cameraman.
[2] Brake was the only Western photo journalist to document the 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.
[8] His Monsoon series[9] of photographs taken in India during 1960 were published internationally in magazines including Life, Queen and Paris Match.
[2] He was commissioned by Time-Life in the 1970s to photograph Sydney and Hong Kong for a book series on major cities.
In the 1981 Queen's Birthday Honours, Brake was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to photography.
His entire collection of photographs is now housed at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
In 2010, the Museum mounted a major retrospective exhibition of his work, Brian Brake: Lens on the World, again with a fully illustrated catalogue.