India: Creative jumpstart
This most recent trip to India was the first time I really used the iPhone, along with the apps Instagram and Snapseed, to produce images that are worth sharing and archiving. My travel companions @jonsturdevant and @Andrewtuce and I were constantly comparing the images we produced in our downtime. The term we used when scouting [...]
Hawaii: Teaching Amid the Palms
Vivian and I love being guest teachers in Hawaii, at the University of the Nations in Kona. That’s easy to believe, right? For more than a decade now, we’ve had the opportunity to teach here for one week each January. Ok, it’s an awesome gig spending a week in a tropical paradise, but even if [...]
Home: New Website
A new website is up thanks to the very helpful people at APhotoFolio. They make great sites that look good big…no, HUGE on large monitors. Very nice folks to work with should you need a new site. Check out my new site: www.garyschapman.com
Home: Simplify
Simplify. Throw away. Give away. Sell. And above all…think before buying anything else. This has been our mandate for the last several months. Vivian and I tossed twenty-five full, black garbage bags of prints, transparencies, tear-sheets and photo album pages in the trash. Things once precious had become an anchor. We decided to get [...]
Home: Alone and not liking it!
Normally, I am the one to go out of the country while my wife Vivian, who only sometimes travels with me, minds all of the day to day “stuff” of the home. This week I have not been adding loads of frequent flyer miles to my account. I have been at home by myself and [...]
Puerto Rico: Travel Glamour
It all seems glamorous…shooting a sunset of El Morro in Puerto Rico while enjoying warm tropical breezes. But behind that image are also the unglamorous underpinnings of travel: airline cancelations, rebooking and cancelations again…scrambling to find a last minute and expensive hotel…3:30 a.m. wakeup calls for a 6 a.m. flight that may or not happen [...]
Panama: Teaching
Just returned from three days of teaching for Panama Photo Workshops. A teacher’s job is made so much easier when students ask great questions and draw from the teacher. This was a great class. Thanks to Tito Herrera and all of the students! This time-lapse of the class was shot at one frame every second [...]
Home: Do you need a second passport?
Why would anyone other than Jason Bourne or James Bond need more than one passport? Can a regular person even legally have more than one passport? Yes, they can and there are two main reasons for applying for a second US passport: 1) Frequent travel necessitates having a second passport available to apply for visas [...]
Middle of the Ocean: Sailing
Five days of ocean sailing, long night watches with unimaginable starry skies, breaching whales, large waves, thunderstorms, calm sunset dinner cruises and great friends all have a way of clearing the mind and soul of the accumulated cobwebs of daily busyness. When you are just a speck floating on a huge ocean, the past and future [...]
Home: Scott Kelby Guest Blog
Many thanks to Scott Kelby for allowing me to guest blog for him. And also many thanks to everyone who took the time to read the post and comment. Here is the link to the Scott Kelby Guest Blog.
Home: Hire Me! Yes Me!
A few weeks ago, author and blogger Donald Miler, wrote a great post about “The Single Most Powerful Question You Can Ask…What if?” He postulates that whenever a novel (or life, he later adds) starts to drag, “the writer simply has to ask this question, and suddenly life gets exciting again.” My question would have [...]
Home: A World Apart
Stock Photography from gary s chapman on Vimeo. Photographing spinning gears, happy couples running on a pristine beach, or creating the illusion of birds flying in a perfect arrow formation are a definite departure from my work as an NGO-humanitarian photographer. This is conceptual stock photography and a world apart from the images of human [...]
World: Identity
Pakistani woman and child living in a tent city after the earthquake in 2005 destroyed her home. Click on the video below to see the short promo piece I did to showcase our NGO, Humanitarian work. Identity-Humanitarian Photography from gary s chapman on Vimeo. All material ©Copyright Gary S. Chapman
Visitors: First 100
One year, one-hundred portrait sessions, 114 visitors (actually 115 since one was pregnant)! The first 100 in one year of shooting is over. We had planned to quit, but realize what a fun community has been created. Quitting now is not an option. We thank each and every one of our visitors. It was a [...]
Home: 10.Q Interview
Heber Vega has started a really fascinating blog about humanitarian/NGO photographers and, hopefully soon, those that hire them. Some spirited comments were aired in the first post in response to Matt Brandon’s interview. We were honored to participate in the second interview. Heber is a humanitarian worker and photographer, originally from Chile, that is based [...]
Home: Depth of Field Interview
Vivian and I had the honor of being interviewed by Matt Brandon of The Digital Trekker for his Depth of Field podcast series. He is an engaging and humorous host to say the least. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with him. We talk about shooting humanitarian photography, working as a team and family. Check it [...]
Wakeup call
It has been a while since the world has had a tragic wakeup call like that unfolding in Haiti. The massive destruction and loss of life cannot be ignored. Images of pain, suffering, desolation and frustration are criss-crossing the airwaves and internet at an unbelievable rate. We are all a bit numbed. But, our own fragility [...]
Creativity: Parched Land Travels?
For people like nurses, lawyers, construction workers, etc., their jobs often require them to respond to outward circumstances. Their tasks are set before their eyes. For “Creatives,” I mean people like painters, musicians, photographers, etc., making a living from their craft often requires them to respond to something that sparks from within, behind their eyes, [...]
Personal Projects-Visitors
Every photographer needs to have personal projects to spur creativity, learn new techniques and just combat the inertia of down time. The first group of images from our Visitors project can be viewed HERE on FaceBook and will be updated throughout the year. For those that don’t want to use FaceBook, here is a gallery [...]
Home: Is Your Glass Half-Empty?
I found this bit of wire bent into the shape of a fish a few months back as I was walking in downtown Atlanta. Since the early days of the Christian Church, this shape has been a symbol of those that follow Jesus Christ. Andrew, one of Jesus’ first disciples said, “There is a lad [...]
Home: Turmoil and Peace
All day yesterday I stared at this photo, a photo that heralds of majesty, immensity and awe. It was my anchor in a very stormy kind of day…the kind of day everybody has occasionally…the kind of day we try to mask with a cheery smile. It was a day when huge waves of fear assailed me: [...]
Home: Lugging Water
Countless times I have been overseas photographing families that have to live without clean running water. I shoot photos of women and children straining under a load 5-10 gallons of water in jerry cans on their head. They wash their dishes with sand and a few cupfuls of precious water. There are no toilets to [...]
Home: The Story Behind the Photo
In my last entry, I posted a photo I had taken in 1978 on assignment for my first newspaper job with the Brooksville Sun-Journal, a tri-weekly in Florida with a circulation of only 3,750. While I was in Pakistan, Gerry Mulligan, who was managing editor of the paper then, found my blog and recognized [...]