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Ian Adams Ohio Lands Photographer
(Published in Over The Back Fence, Fall 1999) The Jeep Cherokee kicks up dust as it rambles down the dirt road through fields beginning to yield the promise of a fruitful harvest. It stops and, as the dust settles, the driver moves carefully through the field, camera in hand. With a sensitive eye and a click of the shutter, Ian Adams captures forever this small piece of Ohio’s landscape on film. He moves on, eager to find the next subject of his passion. “Environmental photography is both my profession and my passion,” says Ian Adams. The biographical sketch in the back of his book, The Ohio Lands, describes him as “a corporate manager gone wrong.” Hardly. What began with amateur nature photography has become a successful business for the 52-year old computer systems manager turned photographer. Leaving a 20-year career in computer systems and a six-figure salary, Ian began his foray into the photography business nine years ago. Since 1990, he has had more than 2,000 images published in dozens of books, calendars, magazines, posters and other publications. He has become well known for his landscapes, mostly of Ohio, featured in Wild & Scenic Ohio and Ohio Places calendars and on the cover of Ohio Magazine to which he is a contributing editor. The Ohio Lands, his most prestigious book to date features his photographs exclusively. The book is a pictorial collection of his favorite subjects—natural areas, old barns, covered bridges, gristmills, lighthouses, rural scenes and historic sites in Ohio. “I’m fascinated by old barns,” he says. “I’ll spend days driving around all the dirt roads looking for them.” About 30 round and polygonal barns still exist in Ohio. Neighboring Indiana leads the nation with 120 of these unusual structures. Much research goes into each planned photographic shoot before Ian takes to the road. Fortunately, he is filled with wanderlust. He and his Jeep Cherokee have probably traveled a half million miles in Ohio alone. He stays mostly on the eastern side of the Mississippi River and travels in 20 to 25 states a year. “Sadly, many of the things I’ve photographed are vanishing from the area. Gristmills especially.” The old historic barns, Ian says, are in bad shape, too. Ten percent of them disappear each year. If he is trying to tell us anything with his photography, it is that we should be aware of the precious heritage we have and work to preserve it. Ian came to this country from England when he was 28 and has grown to appreciate the history and the culture he has found as he travels. He recently became an U.S. citizen. Along with Eliot Porter and David Muench, Ansel Adams has been one of the photographers to inspire him. While Ansel Adams is known for his black and white landscapes, Ian Adams prefers to stay with his color photography. “I see in color. I have to make a conscious effort to see in black and white.” He explains that some of the details can be lost in black and white if you do not consider the subtleties of contrast that will change when color is negated by the tones of black and white and gray. Ian stresses that he is not a nature photographer, although he does on occasion teach seminars in nature photography. Rather he prefers to call himself an environmental photographer. That, he says, involves natural light, the outdoors, and natural, historical or horticultural pictures. He does about five workshops and seminars each year on environmental photography. It is another avenue in which to share his passion for his work. It is that passion that keeps his work interesting. The challenge is always there to find the right subject during the right time of the year and with the right weather conditions. As we sit in his comfortable living room, on a drizzling gray day, he is anxiously awaiting a weather report for a cloudless morning in which he can shoot the sun rising over ice covered Lake Erie near the Marblehead lighthouse. He is hoping to catch the subtle changes in the light rays as they strike the ice-covered water and rocks. “Today is a good day for working in the basement,” he says. He is using the Internet to plan his next trip, an unusual venture for him, crossing the Mississippi and going west into Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. His excitement over the trip west is matched by his enthusiasm for the plans for his future books. A new joint venture with Susan McClure, garden writer, will produce a book to add to their previous collaborative works, The Free-Spirited Garden and Midwest Landscape. The books feature Ian’s garden photography and Susan’s expertise in gardening. He is looking forward to producing another book with Browntrout Publishing exclusively featuring his photographs. It will be called, “Ohio: A Bicentennial Portrait.” Ian Adams emphasizes that he is a businessman, but his artistic side shows in his compositions. Color, form, line, shape and texture combine in each picture to bring drama, life and the sensual pleasure of being there to the appreciative eye. Creating drama in a picture of an Ohio landscape is a challenge. Ohio land is mostly flat. Ian uses large items in the foreground to draw the eye in but still keeps the photograph sharp and clear for the viewer to appreciate the intimate details of his camera’s eye view. The clarity of his photos is preserved in the ilfochrome prints he markets to many of his large corporate clients and private collectors through several galleries. Ilfochrome is a positive printing process that produces a sharp image and rich saturated colors. It is also known for its archival quality. The archival quality of those prints fits with the purpose of Ian’s photography—to leave a legacy. As much a researcher and explorer as he is a photographer and businessman, Ian Adams gives us magnificent documentation through his photography of our heritage and history that will last long after he and the objects he so passionately loves to capture on film are gone.
©Karen Robbins All text on this page is copyrighted in my name. Please obtain permission for its use. |
The work of Ian Adams is featured in: Akron: Written on the Hills by Frances McGovern The Free-Spirited Garden and Midwest Landscape Design by the late Susan McClure, Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens with co-photographer Barney Taxel and text by Steve Love The Holden Arboretum, with text by Steve Love [Click here] for more information about Ian Adams and his photography
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