Adam Jahiel - Photographer
Adam Jahiel - American photographer.
Born April 27, 1956 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Raised in Urbana Illinois. Educated At Brooks Institute of Photography (BS), majoring in commercial photography and University of Missouri Columbia (BJ) majoring in
photojournalism.
Apprenticed with Douglas Kirkland in Los Angeles, CA. Began freelance career in Los Angeles doing editorial, motion picture
and corporate photography.
Adam Jahiel is an internationally known photographer. His work reaches from the American West, to such places as Kyrgyzstan, India, China, Europe, and Africa.
His atmospheric and dynamic images have been exhibited and published internationally. In 1996, he became the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Buffalo Bill
Historical Center, in Cody, Wyoming. His photographs are in the collections of the Nevada Art Museum in Reno, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as well as private and corporate collections.
He lives in Story, Wyoming.
The Project:
For years, Jahiel has been photographing the cowboys of the
Great Basin, perhaps one of the most inhospitable regions of the already rugged West.
These people represent one of the last authentic American subcultures, one that is disappearing at a rapid rate.
Cowboying as an art form is almost obsolete; still, the cowboys hang on, with a ferocious tenacity. Respect there doesn’t come from the trappings of modern life. Talent, knowledge and
skill are valued above all else. And the cowboy tradition has its roots in the oldest of human conflicts: man against nature
and man against himself.
Jahiel tries to reflect those sentiments in these photographs. These cowboys aren’t “remade” into a Hollywood image.
Instead, they are “found” images, in keeping with the spirit of authenticity that permeates the best keepers of this tradition.
Commercial work:
Adam Jahiel, has had a varied professional career.
He has worked for the motion picture industry, adventure projects, most notably as the photographer for the landmark French-American 1987 Titanic expedition. His work has
appeared in most major U.S. publications, including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, National Geographic Society,
and others. Jahiel’s work also has appeared in literally dozens of books, including the acclaimed “The Day in a Life of” series.