Today we’d like to introduce you to Peter D. Adams.
Peter, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Based out of Santa Monica, California, I am a photographer specializing in landscape, cityscape, and abstract fine-art.
Born into a working-class family in the mining heartlands of Yorkshire, England, I was always captivated by the juxtaposition of abstract industrialization and the wealth of beautiful countryside in my home region. Furthermore, my step-grandfather had an SLR camera and lenses and took beautiful images of the like point-and-shoot cameras could not. These images always fascinated me.
During the mid-90′s, when I attended senior-high, pupils were required to academically narrow our focus. Due to my love of the physical environment, Geography was an obvious choice. However, to offset the scientific aspects of this subject, I also chose to study photography, which at the time was entirely film and dark-room based.
In 1997, I attended Sussex University in Brighton, England to study Geography. Whilst at university, my photography took a hiatus. Though I was just too busy with my studies, I was still interested in the art-form and would readily go to exhibitions whenever I could.
After graduation, I moved to Finland where I experienced a different kind of environment that was tranquil but at the same time harsh and unforgiving in winter. The weather really shaped Finland, and it’s people, and this difficult climate became an inspiration.
After I returned to the UK in 2002, I promptly got my first career job as a GIS Analyst. It was at this point my interest in photography was re-ignited. My job involved analyzing tile after tile of digital aerial photography as part of a mapping project. I guess this again got me really interested in the visual world.
Returning to Finland in 2005 I was re-acquainted with the diverse seasons of Finland; the cold dark, snowy winters, and warm summers with long days. It was around this time that I realized that people do not look up enough… we walk around with our heads in the sand, when we have such majestic skies above us!
During this time, I undertook several commissioned works and commercial projects, but in the main, photography was something I did only for himself.
After a month-long vacation in the Southwestern USA, I left Finland in 2008 for a new job and life in Southern California. My love of photography grew in tandem with the size and scale of the cities, skies, and landscapes at my doorstep.
In 2009, I was chosen as one of 28 artists for a prestigious wildlife art show at the San Bernardino County Museum. I was astonished to be chosen for this show. My work was mainly landscape, not wildlife orientated, unlike many of the other artists who had been selected from as far away as Washington State. As the featured artist, I received a lot of press coverage, which to me was something to be really proud of, as it validated my work, something which I am always very critical of.
Between 2015 and present times I branched out into doing a lot more portraiture and commercial photography, mainly in fashion, but my love for fine art continued. During the latter part of 2017 and early part of 2018, I took time to reflect and refine the feel of my work to create more mood where the viewer would feel immersed in my images. In early 2018, one of my pieces of work was selected and chosen as winner of the APA Los Angeles Off The Clock Award for 2018: https://la.apanational.org/?/exhibits-contests/entry/off-the-clock-2018-gallery/.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do, why, and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
During school years, I developed an affection for the physical environment and particularly the weather. I like to think that the weather inspires and shapes most of my photography. It can sharpen or soften the light on an object, or bring different hues and colors to a composure. The unpredictability of the weather is what makes the pictures special to me, as at a different time, the same image would look very different. In much of my work, there is an overemphasis on the sky, even in work themed around philosophy or abstract. Not enough people look up, and so by utilizing the sky, it is my intention that this offers a sense of hope even when the image itself has a dark connotation. I also like to think my work is ever-evolving, just like the landscapes and whether I am inspired by. I always hope that my images can affect a person and provoke an emotional connection to them. Most of all, I want the images to inspire a person to think, to visualize, but also to just look up, look around, look at each other, and look within themselves.
I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to learn to shoot on film, to have leaped into photography when I did. My first SLR camera was fully manual, and I had to buy and load film, then develop it afterward. Film and paper were expensive back then, especially to a teenager, so I had to curb my desire to shoot everything I saw and learn to compose images and wait for the right time to take them. Today, we can shoot and shoot until we run out of memory-space neglecting to take time and think about the composition. Developing my own photographs is also something I cite as an important factor in my photography. Back in the mid-1990s, photographs had to be manipulated either whilst taking the shot, for example, using filters or back in the darkroom. The primitive equipment I was using then meant that aside from cropping, dodging and burning, multiple exposures, or some cross processing, this was the extent of manipulation I could achieve. This carried forward into my photography today where I like to think that anything I work on, I could have achieved back in the darkroom. I hate to over process.
How can artists connect with other artists?
Join a photography group on meetup.com. I have joined several groups and met many wonderful artists which also opened doors on occasions. I highly recommend this.
Some other great advice I have for artists is:
As a photographer and artist, one must never stop growing and learning. Many a time I have felt I have cracked the code and made a giant leap forward only to be humbled again within a short time. However, that humbling should be taken for the positive force that it is and should not become a factor in questioning one’s own ability, as the absolute foundation for undertaking the art should always be the original love for it.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Currently, I have no exhibits ongoing. My images are viewable on my website and Instagram. However, I do sell prints of my fine art work by inquiry.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pdaphoto.com
- Phone: 909-810-7740
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/pda.photo/
Image Credit:
Peter D. Adams
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