Photographer | Paul Hadley
Paul Hadley was born in Barstow, California USA in 1966.
As soon as he could drive, Paul began road-tripping alone shooting pictures. One of these drives took him to Death Valley. While steering an isolated highway, listening to the band Rush on cassette, Paul had this moment of clarity and suddenly knew this was where he needed to live and make the focal point of my photography.
A few weeks later he bought a small trailer to tow behind his car and moved to a ghost town named Death Valley Junction. This began a long affair with the American West and shooting lots of pictures of it.
During his 20’s and 30’s, he continued these photo-ventures and expanded it internationally at every opportunity. Paul traveled as light as possible with a few cameras and a small bag over my shoulder, so he might blend in better to get the shots he wanted.
Paul Hadley developed a style he began calling “Ambervision” (named after the ’80s sunglasses). By adjusting focal lengths and exposure times in unconventional ways, Paul was not only able to capture forms and colors, but to liquefy them together, creating a buttery water-colored photo/painting of sorts. It has sentiment in its story, delicate curved lines – evenly soft and plump, with the quintessential painterly complexion. It will startle when first glanced upon and colors will possess an uncommon arrangement or an absolute match.
Paul found an interesting way to present these amber-images. He laid out a stack of them on a long dining room table and started seeing story correlations between different moments. In joining these scenes together, the images took on a more imaginative story line – a kind of cinematic tone and he began calling them “Moments Merge.”
During 1993 thru 2005, he showed collections in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City galleries. Ambervisions make stunning engaging prints—especially in larger sizes. They quickly became the captivating stars of each exhibit.
In the summer of 2007 his website, www.paulhadley.com, was launched to showcase selected images from 25 years of shooting. There are over 1,000 photographs and 50 categories in this collection, a truly varied array of subjects with a heavy dose of Americana.
There has been no re-touching, cropping or digital manipulation done to any photo in this collection. Each image is shown exactly as captured by the camera.
Currently, his wife Jamie Lyn and Mr. Hadley live between their two homes, one in Pioneertown (located in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, near Joshua Tree National Park) and the other in Orem, Utah.
Paul is a Virgo, enjoys air conditioning, huevos rancheros, rental cars, hotel rooms, thrift stores, naturally aged mid-60’s American cars, Brian Eno, Phil Hendrie and the smell of rain in the desert.
Paul Hadley’s images coming soon…