ABOUT > Artist Statement

A famous photographer once said “we are like hunters, except we don’t kill.” The required awareness of one’s surroundings, the impermanent nature of the subject, and the urgency one experiences when the moment is right appear to be common to both fields. Thanks to a rural upbringing that included hunting and early exposure to photography, I relate to the analogy while I am also thankful that photography preserves its subject rather than terminates it.

The answer to the question “what am I hunting” with the camera is less obvious.

I have spent most of my adult life in Chicago and I am fascinated by the ways in which the city’s identity is inscribed in its unassuming details. Chicago is a city of iconic architecture and urban design but that’s not what interests me the most. Rather, I am drawn to those visual elements that unwittingly manifest themselves while various functions of the city unfold. The image of a blank billboard and an empty lot looks like a tabula rasa for Chicago while it also articulates urban solitude. A cement factory at night is a glimpse of the city’s industrial edge while it is also a potential crime scene, if only in the way it makes me feel while shooting it. And cracks on a wall make me feel perhaps more like a failed palm reader than a hunter while I try to decipher their significance.

I approach people the same way I do other urban scenes; they are anonymous and often even faceless, like the buildings lacking the signature of storied architects. Yet they are graceful and each one is a distinct piece of mosaic in the city’s larger physiognomy.

I work with a range of cameras: a 4X5 view camera, a DSLR, and occasionally my phone. I think of each camera as having its own language and I am interested in how each one mediates my experience of the city.

BIOGRAPHY

Adam is a photographer, designer and artist, living and working in Chicago. He is the founder of Adam Frint Photography (a traditional film and digital photography studio), Frint Inc. (an independent creative studio) and JNKCHL (a screen printing art studio).

The core of Adam’s work is in large format black & white photography. His aesthetic is in part driven by the inherent properties of film along with the slow and intricate process of image making with the view camera. Having grown up in Ridott, Illinois (population 160), he is drawn to both rural and urban landscapes. He can be seen scouting locations in downtown as well as in small country roads with his view camera in the trunk, a DSLR on the passenger seat, and a smart phone in his pocket. He is drawn to the imperfections and impermanence of the ever-changing details, whether they manifest themselves in aging silos or in layers of street art.

Adam holds a BFA in Visual Communications, with a Minor in Photography from Northern Illinois University. He has been greatly influenced by Ansel Adams, László Moholy-Nagy, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Michael Kenna, and by his long-time mentor and friend Michael Johnson.

PRINT INFORMATION

Each negative is limited to an edition of 45 prints. Successive prints are numbered when they are ordered and all sizes are included in the single edition.

All photographs are hand-made silver-gelatin prints on fiber-based paper. Prints are processed to the highest archival standards and selenium toned. Photographs are provided mounted and matted using 100% acid free (rag) museum materials, no exceptions. Edition number and signature can be found on the top side of the matt. Moreover, the edition number, negative date, print date and signature appears on the back of each mount.

Due to travel and scheduling, please allow up to 2 weeks to complete print orders.

Below are examples of the print sizes mounted, framed and matted. Please click through the slideshow to view all sizes.

RETAIL PRICES

Please email or call to discuss pricing at:

adam@adamfrintphotography.com

+1 815 238 5536