Through the

Watching Hadley McCann, clad in shorts and a T-shirt, jump into his Jeep on the streets of Sisters, one might be surprised to learn that he served as an FBI Special Agent for 29 years. Or that he came out of retirement in 2007 when, out of the blue, he was tapped by the Walt Disney Company to become the director of their Global Security Investigations Group.

More believable is that throughout his life, starting as a child growing up in Klamath Falls, McCann has had as his constant companion a camera, beginning with his first Pentax view camera with an old Honeywell flash.

He doesn’t recall exactly why photography was so appealing to him, although he does remember travel guides from Alaska and Africa bringing nature films to his school with images he found intriguing. His youth spent fishing, hunting and camping provided an intimate familiarity with the subject matter of his photographs.

He still remembers the rejection letter from the Chicago Tribune that he received at age 12 after submitting some photos, hoping they would be accepted and published. That early disappointment did nothing to deter this future landscape photographer from pursuing his passion.

While a student at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, majoring in political science and accounting, he became skilled in the use of the darkroom. During that same time period, he spent eight months studying in Ethiopia. For that overseas adventure he purchased two cameras, some lenses, and the requisite aluminum photo case to carry them in.

The equipment went with him to Kenya and Somalia as well as to a summit of African nations where he gained access by pretending to be a photojournalist. His efforts were rewarded when he was able to capture an image of Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia at that time.

“Some of those photographs were very interesting. I’d be proud to print them today,” McCann said. He has recently scanned 500 of those African images for future prints.

When the budding photojournalist was in high school, McCann was introduced to an FBI agent in Medford, an alum of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. The FBI agent, whom McCann described as “a tremendous guy,” tried to recruit the private pilot and talented football player to his alma mater. From McCann’s conversations with the agent, his interest in the bureau grew.

Lewis and Clark got the nod for college, but upon his graduation, after not being able to fly for the military due to cutbacks at the end of the Vietnam War, McCann pursued his interest in the FBI.

Following his 16 weeks of training in Virginia, half of his class was sent to New York City. Anticipating that would be his assignment as well, McCann sold his car, pared down his belongings and was shocked to receive an assignment to the San Francisco office. His entire 29 years were spent in San Francisco and Portland, although he travelled throughout the U.S. and the world on temporary duty assignments.

Most of his FBI career involved criminal cases such as bank robberies and kidnappings. He also worked on the Violent Crimes Squad and the Fugitive Task Force. He served as the Case Agent on the Rajneeshpuram poisonings in The Dalles in 1984, the first and still largest bioterrorism attack in American history. Some 751 individuals were poisoned by deliberate salmonella contamination of salad bars and grocery produce. The poisonings were part of a multi-phased, violent plot by the Rajneeshee leaders to take over the local government of Wasco County, where their 64,000-acre compound was located outside Antelope.

During his time with the FBI, McCann’s travels afforded him a multitude of photographic opportunities. His skills with a camera came in handy quite a few times.

“Many years ago, when the cocaine trade was rampant with Colombian dealers, we had set up a ‘show’ of several hundred thousand dollars with a Colombian dealer from Miami,” McCann said. “It was my job to set up cameras to record the meeting of our undercover agent and the dealer. We were able to get great shots from just a few feet away. Lots of tension when the potentially deadly ‘show’ was underway. Not a time for failure.”

During most of those FBI years, however, he still considered his photography a hobby.

In 2001, he turned in his badge and retired to Sisters to fish the Metolius and photograph the natural beauty of his surroundings. He also established a studio in the Sisters Art Works building where his work is displayed.

Retirement was cut short in 2007 when the Disney folks came knocking with an offer McCann just couldn’t refuse. He moved to the Burbank, Calif., area, closer to Disney’s headquarters, for what he described as “a fun adventure for a couple of years.”

“Most people don’t realize the breadth of the Disney operations including ABC, ESPN, the largest cable company in India, in addition to all the Disney parks around the world,” he said. “My group spent a lot of time assessing stalking type/potentially threatening communications received by various personalities within the company.”

Other duties included training international security staff and executives in handling threat assessment matters. They also coordinated investigations at the corporate level involving different business units.

“There were a variety of investigatory responsibilities,” McCann said, “such as thefts, coordination of investigations with IT professionals regarding potential hacking/breach scenarios, evaluating and handling issues that might surround the termination of potentially difficult employees, and coordination with law enforcement at local, state and federal levels on matters that required law enforcement response.”

In one case, McCann said, a man repeatedly called demanding payment for the supposed writing of a script of a then-popular movie. He was demanding $13 million, and there was concern he might become violent if there was any physical interaction with employees.

“Given that and observations of symptoms indicating potential mental issues, we coordinated response with the Los Angeles Police Threat Assessment team and their very robust mental evaluation group,” McCann said. “We good naturedly told investigators at another studio we were going to pick him up and drive him to their office.”

Behind the scenes, however, still remained his love of photography, and traveling for Disney provided him with unique photographic opportunities.

The lure of Sisters called him back in August 2012. McCann retired for the last time to his fishing and photographic haven. Most recently, he has traveled, just for fun and photographs, to Hawaii, France, Yellowstone National Park, and the southern Utah national parks. Traveling with his digital equipment, he is always looking for opportunities to take great shots, and Adobe Photoshop has become his digital darkroom.

His photography is a “tangible expression of moment, memory and soul,” McCann said. “(It’s) a way to synthesize briefly my philosophy of what a photograph is on an emotional level.”

His modesty when talking about his photography belies the fact that his work beautifully captures the varied landscape of Central Oregon, as well as sights from his world travels. He also enjoys doing portraiture and the occasional special event. His favorite time and place to shoot is “that so-called ‘golden hour’ after sunrise or before sunset,” he said.

“I love shooting in the fall. The light cutting across the landscape is magic. The Metolius River and basin is right at the top of my favorite spots.”

Nowadays, when he takes a short break from photography, he spends time training his 13-month-old Australian shepherd to run agility courses. Remington, who he describes as play-driven, is also training to ride along with McCann in his canoe and flat-water kayak on local adventures.

Behind all his travels, experiences and careers, photography has remained a constant part of McCann’s life, but he is quick to stress that it’s really purely for enjoyment.

“I keep trying to do things I enjoy,” he said. “I don’t need a heavy work career. I’m not trying to build a huge photo business. I just want to have fun along the way.”