BIO

Adam CK Vollick - Photo by Brian O'Brien

My name is Adam CK Vollick.  I grew up in rural Ontario, on a plot of land between my Grandfather’s farm and my Great Uncle’s farm.  My dad, his dad, and my uncle were all carpenters, and another uncle was a mechanical engineer.  My grandfather nearing his retirement rented his farmland to a big farming outfit up the road, so the family barn got converted into a fully functional workshop, complete with a selection of milled hard and soft woods out of the family forest continually curing in the hay mow.

My  whole family had use of the shop.  It had everything for woodworking, welding and machining, a paintbooth, and shop tools for working on vehicles.  I spent a great deal of my childhood helping and observing the men of my family build and fix things.  They did everything themselves: wiring, plumbing, carpentry, vehicle maintenance, engine overhauls, building woodsplitters and tractor cabs from scratch all with great pride and frugality, and never a complaint among them.  I didn’t become a tradesmen like my dad, but I do feel like I absorbed the work ethic, pioneering spirit, methodical thinking, diversity and patience that I observed and made it all a part of the person I am today.

I fell in love with making images at a very young age.  Some of my earliest memories are from staring out the side window of the car as a child, on my way to Grandma’s house early in the morning before my Mother went to work.  I used to squint real hard at oncoming headlights to make them into starbursts, or stare deep into the forested countryside hoping to see some wildlife while the foreground shrubs streaked by.   At the age of six I bought a Kodak disc camera for a quarter (or maybe it was sixty cents), at a garage sale in my small town. I loved it – I needed to know everything about it, and read every book they had in the library about photography. What completely snared me though was entering a darkroom for the first time as a teenager. I watched an image appear on photo paper in a developer tray, after it had been exposed to a projection, and knew that strange magic was within my grasp. It signified a black art that captures energy both visible and invisible. It also allowed me to capture the kind of details I wished I could paint. I fast-tracked through the photography program in high school, to a point where they had to invent new courses for me to take independently. By the time I left for college I had been a teacher’s assistant in a communications class, I had helped to develop the digital photography and video editing curriculum, and written a tutorial for staff on how to use the matrox computer video editing machine called the personal producer. I’d bulk load my own 50 exposure rolls of B&W film everyday and go home after school to wander the farm in search of the perfect composition and the perfect light.

Absolut Hindsight - A College Project

College was pretty stale by comparison. There were, however, two great individuals during my tenure at Sheridan, whose classes I attended right till the bitter end.  David Hlynsky and Howard Simkins.  David Hlynsky was a resident artist at the college, and as well at OCAD and co founder of the holographers guild in Canada. Simkins was a technological guru who steered the college in it’s technology initiatives.  Both men were visionaries and instrumental in my development in very different ways.  Directly or indirectly David taught me that the process of creation is as worthwhile as the end product, and much much more interesting.  The great lesson learned from Howard Simkins was that it takes more vision to create illusions in the camera, and it is much more gratifying, much less expensive and less time consuming.  Do as much as you can, with as little as possible is a theme that has been recurring over and over again since my childhood.

I left the program without a diploma, to work as a photographic assistant.  I learned a lot from the practical environment, beyond the technique and pragmatism of “pro” studios, It also became clear that I had my own unique pursuit for photography, that could not be boxed by “commercial”, “industrial”, “editorial”, or “fashion” labels.  So I left Toronto in search of a less hip, slick, condescending environment to develop my voice.  I found myself back in Hamilton.

James N. Allen Skyway Bridge at night - My first multi-image panorama. Stitched together out of 20, 5 Megapixel images.

I worked by day at a burgeoning digital studio as the resident jack-of-all-trades.  Assistant, Second shooter, Retouch artist, archivist, systems technician. The owner was not a trained photographer, he was a full auto guy that was very extroverted, he figured out that he could sell shitty pictures to people who didn’t know any better.  Salesmen generally talk their victims to death.  Digital for him meant he could charge more and sell it faster, playing up the instant gratification angle.  He and I were polar opposites – I was an introverted perfectionist perpetually trying to fix his mistakes.  It was infuriating, but he had a lot of great gear, so at night when the studio closed down, it became my playground.  I would work on my panoramic imaging techniques, the spacetime series, but what was even more tributary to where I am now, I spent a lot of time photographing the music scene around Hamilton.

Chore L-R Mike Bell, Mitch Bowden, Dave Dunham, Chris Bell

My friends in the band Chore lived there.  I hooked up with the late Dan Achen, former guitarist of Junkhouse, and great producer in his own right.  I did a lot of work with a great band he produced called Frantic City, that sadly never got the recognition they deserved as have long since split.  That’s how I met Bob Lanois.  He was a friend of Dan Achen, and is Daniel Lanois’ brother.

Bob is a one-of-a-kind, legend of a man.  He lives completely of his own accord, basically off the grid, in a shack in the woods, and is one of the most progressive and knowledgeable, caring, individuals ever to exist.  The first time I met him he had pulled up outside of Catherine North (Achen’s studio) in an old 442, exchanged a few words with Achen and proceeded to smoke his tires before peeling away, sideways around the corner and out of sight.

He and I became friends when he was learning to play the harmonica (his first instrument) while jamming Wednesday nights with Frantic City at a closed down bar near the steel plants.  Bob is a visual artist, and when he saw my portfolio, I think the experimental nature of my work resonated with him and we began speaking regularly about our respective art forms, as well as technology, and psychology surrounding visual creation.  We exhibited together a few times, between 2000-2003.  He was and still is a beacon of inner peace for me.

Dan Achen with Junkhouse

A few years past, and the digital studio I was working at was suffering, while my pay cheques would bounce, so I had to move on.  Serendipitously I got a call from Daniel Lanois to shoot some press photos for his upcoming release, Belladonna – beautiful instrumental record. A one-hour shoot turned into an eight-hour hang at his studio in Toronto, philosophizing and creating pictures. A few weeks later I got an invitation to come to LA and develop some stage visuals for the Belladonna tour. That developed into a full-time relationship whereby I facilitate all things visual for Daniel. I’ve since shot, edited and co-directed two artful music films with him: Here Is What Is and Le Noise and a third, Hallelujah Train, is stuck in post production right now. I also designed the packaging for Here Is What Is and provided legendary album cover designer Gary Burden with the imagery for Neil Young’s Le Noise (CD, LP, DVD and Blu-ray).

I feel so blessed to have found my way onto this path,  to make a living by the grace and beauty of talented people that I love.  I get to work with my heroes.  I get to live with the girl of my dreams,  a naturopathic doctor who inspires, challenges, and educates me constantly, and our sweet little daughter, the jewel of our existence.  They are my constant reminders of what life is about.

Enjoy the power of now.

Yours Truly,

Adam CK Vollick
01/14/2011

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 16th, 2011 at 3:55 pm. It is filed under BIO, BIO & MENTIONS, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.