Wildheart Archive: Notes from the field with Blaine, owner of Adaptation Photography.
Welcome to AP. Adaptation Photography LLC was founded in Maine in September, 2022 by myself, Blaine Flanders, of Rochester, NY.
So where did this all begin?
The idea of photography for me started with a red tennis ball some years ago – more like over 20 years ago – in a backyard surrounded by a weeping willow tree, a chocolate labrador retriever, a picturesque gazebo, and potted geraniums. As a kid at the time, our chocolate lab Bentley was the star of my world. He and I would play water balloon toss & catch, play spies, make snow forts, and run around the thickets in the back of the property, where sometimes he found the hole in the fence and would run away down into the neighborhood.
When my mom and I visited Petco, we would routinely pick out toys for our dogs and cats (and fish and hermit crabs and hamster). At one point I selected a red tennis ball. To this day, my mom still has the photo posted on her Facebook and I have a printed copy somewhere in a homemade calendar consisting of keepsake photos.
To be frank, I’m not sure when this photo was taken. When I look back in time, this may have been when I remember it as described above, but it also could have been taken a few years later after Bentley passed away. So, this might actually be our JRT’s ball. Regardless, the memories embellish my memory of this moment when I realized I loved photography.
I remember feeling so artsy taking this photo. I had always liked when an object was slightly offset from center. In high school, I learned the rule of thirds, along with how to develop film in a dark room and how to build a camera. Though I learned it years after the tennis ball photo, the rule of thirds has really stuck with me in my photography career.
As a kid, I used to travel often to visit family all across New England. It is easy to get bored as a passenger after so many miles. I created a persona “the traveling apple”, where I took a photograph every so often on one particular trip. This was again another moment when I unintentionally was using photography to capture not just this inanimate object traveling hundreds of miles, but I was capturing my experience of traveling and feelings at that moment in time associated with that photo. I shared this photo with loved ones so they got to travel along with me through the apple’s eye!
A generic apple held a lot of meaning and photography had literally improved my life experiences.
Fast forward to today. I love to photograph horses. No surprise there since I am always associated with them in some way. I have been riding for 22 years and have had a beautiful partnership with my horse Gandolf for almost 18 of those glorious years. I carry my camera with me as much as possible to capture flowers with blurry backgrounds, horses in the pasture, bees pollinating our world, or anything else that inspires me. Horses will always be at the root of the business because of how important they are to my identity. I don’t want to spoil it before next post, but there is a connection to horses with the name AP.
In 2022, AP hosted free sessions when I was just starting, in order to grow my client base. I have upgraded my equipment several times and did a huge upgrade this year. I officially filed for the LLC earlier this year, got my systems in order, and now have a fully developed brand. The AP business is expanding its portfolio and collections offered, and I look forward to what is coming next. More to share on that this winter- stay tuned!
To my amazing clients who have been with me since the start of AP, you know who you are, and I wouldn’t be here today without your support and the participation of your unicorns.
“A look behind the lens”
Blaine Flanders, owner of Adaptation Photography.
Photographed by Hazelwood Creative.
There is more to share about my journey, Gandolf, the AP name, and how I decided to start a photography business – all of which I will save for later, here in the Wildheart Archive.
Until the next field note,
Blaine
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