About Adam

“Light is the key to producing an image that can relay a sense, a feeling.”

I was born in Watford, England in 1964. My love for the outdoors started early, when my older brother and I joined the Boy Scouts. Thanks to some great leaders and strong friendships, scouting became a positive and rewarding introduction to the wild places of the UK.

Camping, hiking, and time in nature naturally led me to an interest in rock climbing. The only problem? I lived right in the middle of the country—flat as could be—not exactly ideal for a teenager dreaming of vertical adventure.

Still, I was determined. Every Monday, I’d hop on my skateboard and ride several miles to the Milton Keynes Climbing Club. The climbing wall there was, frankly, terrible—but I didn’t care. I spent hours practising what I could. The real draw for me, though, was the people. I’d sit and listen, completely absorbed, as the older climbers shared stories of their adventures.

I was hooked—and more than ready to find my way into the mountains.

In 1979, I emigrated to Canada with my two brothers and our parents. I was excited about the move—especially the idea of climbing in the Canadian Rockies—but I quickly discovered that dream would have to wait. We’d settled in southern Ontario, about three thousand kilometres from the nearest mountain.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Ontario had the Niagara Escarpment. It wasn’t the Rockies, not by a long shot, but it turned out to be just the thing I needed. The Escarpment fed my climbing obsession for years—at least until I was old enough to travel on my own.

Up until my late twenties, I spent a lot of time climbing throughout North America. In the 1980s, I came across the emerging sport of paragliding. It turned out to be the perfect complement to mountaineering—after a long ascent, I could now glide off the summit and be back down in minutes instead of hours.

Paragliding is exhilarating, but like any extreme sport, it comes with serious risks. A few poor decisions could easily lead to injury or worse. I made my share of questionable calls, but thankfully walked away relatively unscathed. Still, over time I stepped away from flying. As new creative interests took hold, climbing also began to fade into the background—but my connection to nature and the outdoors never left me.

Now, I’d love to say that photography was always my calling, but the truth is it came about rather unexpectedly. I stumbled into it after flipping through one of John Shaw’s nature photography books. Like many new camera owners, I started off as a snapshooter. Buying a shiny new SLR didn’t magically turn me into a professional—I was simply an amateur with nice gear.

But I wanted to understand why my images didn’t have the same clarity, sharpness, or compositional strength I saw in the work of established photographers. Rather than relying on trial and error, I decided to take it seriously and enrolled in a two-year photography program at Langara College in Vancouver. That decision changed everything.

After college, I stumbled upon a small company called Cornwall Publishing. At the time, they produced just one magazine—Gardens West. Over the years, that single publication grew into a family of four gardening magazines distributed across Canada.

I have to say, without the support of Dorothy Horton and the team at Cornwall, I probably wouldn’t be a professional photographer today. Dorothy gave me my start, and for that I’ll always be grateful. When she retired in 2012, her son David Mulroney took over the business. Sadly, through a series of missteps, the magazines folded in 2014.

Up until that point, I had thousands of images published—on covers, in articles, and throughout the pages of all four magazines. I’ll always miss the crew at Cornwall and the many gardeners I had the pleasure of meeting during those twenty-odd years. It was a meaningful chapter in my career.

Photography, for me, has always been rooted in experience. I don’t photograph to collect images—I photograph because it gives me a reason to be out there. The process of hiking to a location, setting up a camera, and waiting for the light—that’s what I love most.

To stand on a ridge watching the last glow of sun touch a snow-covered peak, or to wake in a wildflower-filled meadow far from the road—these are the moments that draw me to photography. It’s not the photographs themselves that matter most, but the experiences behind them.

I hope you enjoy the images as much as I’ve enjoyed making them—and that they inspire you to get outside and find a few of your own.