FOR AIR & MUSIC

ADAM SINCLAIR

// Adam is a Melbourne-based photographer with a background in graphic design. He has an eye for capturing beautiful details in ordinary objects in his environment. The images he submitted though, are from one of his rarer shoots, a concert event that he captured shortly after the end of one of the pandemic lockdowns, the joy of which he wanted to freeze in time.

“I trained as a graphic designer in my younger years, which I suspect has crept into my work in some ways. I dabbled making images in my twenties, eventually putting my camera aside.” Having left photography behind for a number of years, in his late thirties after an extraordinarily sad time in his life, Adam took up photography again as a way to reconnect with a part of himself that he felt he had lost. “As for goals, I am writing a small photography book full of characters and stories which I´d like to finish before I am dust, and to spend a good portion of my second half of life teaching photography.”

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Pablo Picasso

What draws you to the arts?

“Because it is about the only thing that makes sense to me. The arts attract me because it seems as good as any way to say “This is what it feels like to be in the world at this moment in time”. Watching, listening, reading, or participating in that with others is truly magical to me. One of my earliest memories is talking and singing into a red, blue and yellow cassette recorder. I carried it everywhere. I don’t know why I loved it. I just did. I think art is a real compulsion for many, and that compulsion is never the same twice, which I love. I feel profoundly myself when I am creating. But when I am the observer I get to step outside that for a minute, and enter into someone else’s world. Art is a cosmic adventure.”

What did you like best about shooting these concert performances?

“This is hard! I think the work is altogether different from my usual, though I retained elements of my personal style. Whatever that even is. It is no secret I adore colour, and I feel that love is well represented in the Hobsons Bay Coastguard Images. The images of James Ellis I love because I wanted their country aesthetic to shine through, with a inspiration from old 70mm films. In both sets I (hope) I retained my love for gesture, detail, colour and story.”

When his city, Melbourne, came up “gasping for air from our lockdown”, one of the first things Adam wanted to do was go listen to some live music. So he went to concerts by Hobsons Bay Coastguard and the country band James Ellis and the Jealous Guys. “That afternoon remains as perfect in my mind now as it was then; the ice cold beer, my wonderful friends laughing, the music. I’d never tried gig photography, but felt like I’d learned enough on the street to perhaps have a different take on it than the usual work you see. I wanted to preserve that night forever, to make those musicians look as extraordinary as they made us feel. To help me remember what it was like to be there. Musicians are endlessly photographable!”

We completely agree, and we hope you like Adam´s beautiful images as much as we do.

Click on the photos to see a larger version. Some images may be cropped for layout.