MacEachern worked as a TV cameraman in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and Moncton, New Brunswick, and in 1962, moved to Saint John to work for CHSJ-TV. Soon after he began taking photographs in his spare time. Prompted by the many fires and impending urban renewal, his camera turned to documenting the changing face of the city in the mid 1960s. During this time, he also worked as a theatre photographer for the Rothesay Playhouse (Summer Stock 1963-1966).
In 1966 MacEachern moved to Toronto where he worked as a freelance photojournalist for various magazines. A year later he was hired as a studio cameraman for CBC Toronto. He then moved to London, Ontario in 1968 to continue freelance photography as a magazine and industrial photojournalist. He also taught photography at H. B. Beal Secondary School, Fanshawe Community College, and The University of Western Ontario.
Ian MacEachern's photographs have been published in artscanada, Canadian Magazine, Chatelaine, The Imperial Oil Review, London Magazine, Maclean's, Ontario Living, Quest, Saturday Night, Shell News, The Star Weekly Magazine, Site Sound,and Time Canada. He was the principal photographer for "Symbols of Aspiration; Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario", an exhibition and book published by University of Toronto Press in 1986.
MacEachern has done various assignments for Canadian Cancer Society, CBC-TV, EMCO Limited, Ex-Cell-O Corporation, Kellogg's, London Life Insurance Company, The London Public Library and Art Museum (now Museum London), Northern Telecom, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Talbot Theatre (London, Ontario), and The University of Western Ontario Information Services.
Ian MacEachern has had several one-man shows in Canada and the United States, as well as various group exhibitions.
His photographs are in the permanent collection of Museum London, and the McIntosh Gallery at Western University in London, Ontario, and in several private collections. Recent exhibitions include Time & Tides Institute in Eastport, Maine, Handworks Gallery, and Saint John Arts Centre. He recently has had photographs of The Velvet Underground in The Museum of Modern Art, Paris, France, during their "Andy Warhol Unlimited" exhibition, and the Musee de Musique for their Velvet Underground exhibition. He has been in the London Artist's tour in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
"The Lost City, Ian MacEachern's Photographs of Saint John. (1963-1973)" is a travelling exhibition being circulated by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The exhibition opened in Saint John, New Brunswick, in November, and will be in Fredericton in January 2019, and London, Ontario in September 2019.
Ian MacEachern lives in London, Ontario.
