Adam Gibbs

Adam Gibbs

Adam has been a professional photographer since 1991, with a career that spans both fine art and commercial applications internationally. His work was prominently featured in gardening magazines by Cornwall Publishing, with thousands of images and over 200 cover photos published between 1995 and 2015. His talents have graced the pages of prestigious publications, including the BBC's acclaimed "Planet Earth" book, as well as Nature’s Best, Fine Cooking, Fine Gardening, and Outdoor Photographer magazines.

Since 2017, Adam has successfully transitioned to running his own YouTube channel, where he shares his love of the outdoors and photography, with a focus on composition, light, and adventure. Along the way, he has earned several awards, including recognition from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and the Epson Pano Awards. In 2018, Adam reached a career milestone by winning the coveted International Landscape Photographer of the Year award.

adamgibbs.com

Charlotte Parkin

Head of Marketing & Sub Editor for On Landscape. Dabble in digital photography, open water swimmer, cooking buff & yogi.

In this interview, Adam looks back at the influences that shaped his path from the UK to Canada, his early breaks in publishing, and the evolution of a style built on patience and close observation. We also touch on collaboration, book projects, competitions, and his continued work documenting the pressures on Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests. The result is a clear sense of a photographer who balances craft with an honest respect for the places he works in.

We’d love to hear a bit about your background - what you studied or chose to study at school/college, and your path to what kind of work you do now.

I studied photography at Langara College in Vancouver — a two-year program that covered everything from business to chemistry. Back in the late ’80s, most of the focus was on traditional photography: lab work, darkroom techniques, and studio sessions with products or models. Editorial work wasn’t really part of the curriculum.

At the time, my goal was to work in a studio photographing products. But near the end of the program, I spent a couple of weeks assisting in a professional studio, and after hearing the constant complaints about the industry, I realized it wasn’t for me.

While I was in school, I spent most of my free time practising at local public gardens. I couldn’t afford to travel, so the gardens became my classroom. By the time I finished college, I had built up what I thought were some great garden images, so I started sending them to gardening magazines. A few were accepted, and that small success led me to assignment work with a local publisher, Cornwall Publishing.

From there, I gradually built up steady freelance work and made a living shooting editorial photography, mostly for gardening magazines, for about 25 years.

By 2016, the magazine industry had taken a sharp downturn, and most of my editorial work disappeared. I tried running workshops but had little success at first, so I started a YouTube channel to reach more people. Eight years later, that’s still what I’m doing, sharing my love of photography in a completely different way.