Ian Coristine spent 22 years in the aircraft business handling the distribution of Challenger recreational aircraft across Canada. His marketing duties included writing articles for aviation magazines which included air-to-air photography. Without realizing it, the demanding techniques of close formation flying while shooting pictures perfectly prepared him for another career he had never planned on.
In 1992, a random flight in a float-equipped Challenger led to his discovery and love affair with the 1000 Islands. He became the owner of an island, literally one in a thousand because it alone offered a natural harbor exactly a wingspan wide to protect his plane from marauding storms.
His island photography began as an attempt to show friends his discovery but he soon realized a number of unlikely ingredients had converged to present an opportunity. He owned the perfect plane for the task and had the training to use it unusually effectively. Unlike most photographers who are expected to capture the spirit of a place in a brief visit, he and his plane were living in "the assignment." If the magic didn’t cooperate today, he could try again tomorrow or the next day, week, month or year. He began to realize this was more than an opportunity, it was an obligation. It needed to happen and it was very unlikely these ingredients would come together again.
Coristine's first book of photography, The 1000 Islands, was an astonishing success, selling out three large printings and becoming by far the most successful book about the place ever published. It is now a sought-after collectible. Water, Wind and Sky was released in 2005 and his third book, The Thousand Islands, completed a trilogy of books about the River in 2006. All three were bestsellers despite not being distributed beyond the immediate region. A smaller, fourth booklet 1000 Islands was published in 2007 selling out a print run of 30,000 copies and winning a Premier Print "Benny" Award in the graphic arts industry's largest and most prestigious worldwide printing competition.
His fifth and final book of photography was released in June 2010. Titled The very best of Ian Coristine’s 1000 Islands, it is a compilation of his finest photographs, selected from a library of over 30,000 images. Wanting to make it the very best in every way, Coristine chose to use the extreme high gloss found on high-end book and magazine covers, but on every page. It required an extensive search around the globe to find a printer capable of creating what may well be the world's first "book of covers." Apparently the effort was worthwhile. The book was selected from over 5,000 entries submitted by major publishing houses around the world for a 2010 "Benny." Named for Benjamin Franklin, this prestigious international award recognizes those responsible for the creation and production of outstanding print communications. This is Coristine's second Benny. Volume V is his fourth hard-cover bestseller, contributing to a total of over 61,000 hard-cover books sold, despite regional distribution only.
His Thousand Islands photographs have been featured internationally, in Canadian Geographic, Central New York Magazine, Coastal Living, Cottage Life, Country Discoveries, Le Figaro (France), Faerie Magazine, Gourmet, Kingston Life, Lakeland Boating, Les Echos Serie Limitée (France), SAIL Magazine, Volvo's LIV Magazine (International Edition), Volvo Car España (Spain), as well as in many books and publications by other authors about the region.
The first one-man gallery exhibition of his work was held at the Brockville Arts Center in 2004. The Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York featured “Aerial Perspectives – The Photography of Ian Coristine” during the summer of 2005. The popularity of that exhibit prompted a sequel “Another Aerial Perspective” in the summer of 2006. Onondaga Community College, in conjunction with the Everson Museum of Art, brought Coristine's images to Syracuse, NY with historian and professor emeritus Paul Malo through an exhibition titled "A Floating World." St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. hosted "A Floating World - Ian Coristine's Thousand Islands", again with Professsor Malo at the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery.
DxO Labs of Paris, France, award winning publishers of revolutionary high-end camera and lens correction software, selected Coristine as one of their 12 founding "Image Masters" from professional photographers around the world. The City of Brockville, Ontario nominated him for its “Tourism Award” in recognition of the attention his work has brought the region.