Photographer Profile: Ian Casey

Like all art, photography invokes emotion, but the best photography may not make those emotions apparent right off the bat. On my first scroll through the images I received for this article, I could feel my interest immediately begin to build. With each click to the next photo, my amygdala lit up brighter and brighter. I was drawn further in as the images progressed; goose bumps forming on the surface of my skin as if I was physically present within each shot. I couldn’t yet decipher what my brain was explicitly trying to tell me, but I knew almost instantly that I was going to be a huge fan of Ian Casey’s work.

Of all the photos we had to choose from to display on these pages, I decided on the ones that I felt not only captured Ian’s evocative style but expressed a piece of his atmospheric personality as well. While we only corresponded via email, I got a strong sense from his responses that I was speaking with someone wise beyond his years. His words were filled with gratitude, wonder, presence, and awareness; qualities that, when looked at long enough, can be wholly felt in his photos.

“My photography career has progressed in direct relationship to my career in finding the vast array of beauty that is life,” commented Ian on where he is now. “Seeing it, feeling it, and capturing it with further clarity.” Taking to cameras in his formidable high school years in North Ogden, UT, a supportive teacher in his sophomore photography class set him on his journey behind the lens. “I feel still very much in the process of finding a personal style with photography, but I love being out wherever with the intention of being present and letting the captures unfold from that point.” That spirit of connectedness and go-with-the-flow attitude seems to permeate his life, even into other creative endeavors; “My life outside of photography is very quaint involving myself in expression, well being, and playing around. I work with varieties of illustrative mediums as well as video and music compositions.”

As my words are coming to an end, I now know what emotions Ian’s work invoked in me. Besides the apparent feelings of joy and aesthetic pleasure, the images gave me a sense of tension. Not in a negative, anxious way, but in the way the surface of the ocean has tension. No matter how unassuming those waters may look, beneath his photos’ surface tension lies a rich world worth exploring, full of self-reflection, curiosity, peace, nostalgia, and beauty.

In regards to his career moving forward, only Ian himself could express it best, “The future for me looks more present, vibrant, and confident. I have a dream of a fuller and fuller capacity for love involving freedom in travel and expression and letting itself unfold; however the dream best sees fit.” See more of Ian’s work and follow his ever-evolving journey on Instagram @_iancasey

Blue through the airport

Aqua blue neighbors vehicle

Lunar Eclipse 2019; Snow in the foreground

Words by Jake Kenobi