10
B+W
A
s head of the photography
programme at Brigham
Young University in the US,
Paul Adams is often asked
to talk about his work. He
says he finds this awkward.
‘I’ve often thought that if I was articulate
enough and interesting enough, I wouldn’t
have to take photos, and if my photos were
really doing their job, I wouldn’t have
to talk about them.’ Such unassuming
reflections belie the talent behind the lens.
Adams is unpretentious, for sure, and his
thoughtful replies offer a powerful, vivid
narration of not only his life growing up
in Issaquah, a small town on the shores of
Lake Sammamish in Washington State,but also on his photogravure collection,
an imaginative series that presents ironic,
alternative narratives to familiar tales.
Here, Adams talks about his childhood
in the unspoilt Pacific north-west,
following in the footsteps of his mentor,
the acclaimed landscape photographer
John Telford, and explains his photogravure
series – a masterly body of work in which
the image drove the idea.‘I grew up in a close family with four
siblings and lived in the same house until
I left home. I spent much of my childhood
exploring the nearby creek, reading and
backpacking through the North Cascades.
At 15 I got a job in a meat market cleaning
up after the butchers so I could save up for
my first camera – a Pentax Super Program.
I thought that if I had a serious camera,
people would take me more seriously. For
me, photography has always been a solitary
experience, so I spent most of my time taking
pictures of things I wanted to see as pictures- people rarely made it into my viewfinder.
I’d shoot a roll of film, borrow my parents’
car, and then drive an hour to the closest
film processing shop. This was back when
‘I’d shoot a roll of film,
borrow my parents’ car, and
then drive an hour to the
closest film processing shop.’
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