Adam Powers is something of an anomaly. He has lived in various places in the world including Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. Adam was born in Trinidad and Tobago where his mother was a photographer and rep for Kodak. She would travel into the small villages and capture the elegance and grace of women and men on the island. This was Adam's first introduction to photography that he wouldn't discover until 25 years later.
Abandoning the US, disillusioned with the film industry in Seattle, he set out to live in socialist Sweden and return to the land where his grandparents had once left for a life in America. He has rediscovered and reinvented himself in the picturesque countyside of Dalarna county. Outside of the hum-drum of the big city, in a small, cozy village he lives and cultivates his own food, living in thrift and developing art through film, photography, music and painting. This is where he discovered his talents in photography and landscape composition. Finding deep inspiration in nature and organic structures, Adam frames out the modern world to find a melancholic mystical experience in his pictures. Adam once told a local newspaper, "A picture is not what you frame, its how you frame it and more importantly, what you chose to leave out of the frame... When I take photographs I feel like I am in a way telling a lie, I like to tell beautiful lies in my pictures."
Adam uses Instagram as a way to showcase his photography. He goes under the moniker holyfarmer (, and perhaps it would be more representative the name was holyframer). When asked why he uses social media to publish he said,
"Its easy to publish and there is something in sharing a photograph with as little barriers as possible that I find interesting and liberating. I used to shoot with a DSLR and before that a film camera but I have found that my preferred camera is my iPhone where I can give my attention to composition and worry less about focus, and actually publish instead of sitting on hundreds of photographs and never finding the time or inspiration to edit them all. I get energy when I shoot, and a lot of times I am literally sprinting through a field racing to capture a light, I dont want to worry that when I blow the picture up on a big screen the image is completely out of focus. Maybe its ADD or whatever they call it, but I like to shoot and move on. Every moment is a new potential, that's what I am trying to capture."
In Adam's photography one can feel a sensitivity and an awareness of the landscape. He is interested and is now incorporating more people into his images. He said, "I have an affinity to the classic - I like to create a timeless feeling where one cannot fully put a finger on time and place, where there is an ambiguity between whats real and whats a dream." You will find that his photo's indeed are grasping for a world that modernity is quickly leaving behind. If he is telling a lie with his photo's, they are indeed beautifully told.
Links:
https://instagram.com/holyfarmer
http://adampowers.vsco.co/grid/1
https://vimeo.com/80980183
