Gary S. Chapman, A Humanitarian Photographer for NGO's and Non-profits » Personal

India: Creative jumpstart

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:17:06 +0000

Instagram iPhone photos

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 a possible photo was, “Is that snapseedable?” Using the iPhone is a way to get creativity flowing and take visual notes of locations.

A bonus that I just discovered is the coolness factor when you import the images into Adobe Lightroom 4 and view the images in the map view. The cell tower triangulation did a great job of pinpointing exact locations of our travels around India.

Hawaii: Teaching Amid the Palms

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:36:58 +0000

SOP 1 Classroom-Photo by Bethani Montgomery

School of Photography 1 Class 2012-Photo by Josh Fletcher

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 the school were in Alaska during the dead of winter, I’m sure we’d still love it.

Meeting so many international students and learning about their cultures is one highlight that draws us here. Eight nationalities are sharing their love of photography in this year’s class. You are as likely to hear Mandarin, Dutch, Spanish or German spoken as English while the students are working on their projects.

The School of Photography (SOP 1) condenses the basics of digital photography into a 12 week course taught by Dennis Fahringer, and several guest teachers. Stanley Leary and Louis Deluca will each be heading this way soon for a week of teaching. Stanley shares his lighting and business knowledge and Louis delves into photojournalism and story telling.

Vivian and I shared the basics of humanitarian, non-profit, NGO photography as well as touching on ethics and digital workflow. With the help of great sponsors we have also had some wonderful give-aways thanks to Think Tank Photo, Nikon, BlackRapid, and ShirtPocket Software. Aloha!

P.S. The class was super special because our daughter, Sara Chapman, is one of several staff for this school!

Home: New Website

admin — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 22:20:30 +0000

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

admin — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:46:57 +0000

Gary and Vivian Chapman sit on top of old work photos, magazine tearsheets, family photos, and children's artwork that has been digitized. The originals will be thrown away in an effort to simplify life.

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 rid of it all. During marathon scanning sessions, everything was digitized and backed-up before the cherished prints were flung in with the household garbage.

There were pangs of, “Are we doing the right thing?” But the freedom of simplicity yields a pleasant peace. No longer will we have to find room to store the huge amount of collected visual media or concern ourselves with future moves or even fret about mold in the basement storage area. Our memories now all fit on a palm-sized hard drive and will soon be key-worded and searchable, an obvious benefit of the digitizing process.

I have always felt the most freedom when I travel with one camera bag and one piece of carry-on luggage. Less stuff = less to “worry” about. Vivian and I are now trying to take this simple approach with our day to day living as well. Little by little, we are casting off the extra baggage so we can be free to go, free to move, free to do.

Live simply that others might simply live. -Elizabeth Ann Seton

Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify. -Henry Thoreau

Home: Alone and not liking it!

admin — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:22:42 +0000

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 Vivian is in The Dominican Republic. I don’t like it. Eating by myself is no fun. I skipped running because who wants to do that alone. I watched a romantic comedy one night and almost lost it. I even caught myself talking to myself.

I miss late night cups of tea together. I miss discussing the book or articles we are reading. I even miss humdrum stuff we often do together like pulling the clean dishes out of the dishwasher.

This short (compared to my son who is in Iraq) time apart has at least refocused me a bit. What is most important to me? What is really worth my time and attention. I could go through a whole list of things, some truly valuable, but nothing compares to time spent with Vivian.

I miss you Vivian

And if there are any typos or grammatical errors in this post…well…Vivian is the one who usually does the editing and she isn’t here. One good thing about being alone…I can leave the toilet seat up without worrying about the consequences.

Photograph of Vivian in Puerto Rico (Nikon D3s, 24-120mm f4 @46mm, 1/160 sec, f5.6, ISO400)

Puerto Rico: Travel Glamour

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:08:01 +0000

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 because of an unusual snow/ice storm in Atlanta…relief on finally boarding plane…realization upon landing that I am stuck in the ATL airport because the cabs aren’t running and the roads are too icey for family to pick me up.

At least once a week I get an email from a young photographer wanting to know how to travel and take photos. Maybe the short answer should be, “Count the costs.”

El Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico (Nikon D3s, 24-120mm f4 @120mm, 1/1000 sec, f4, ISO200)
Atlanta airport (Nikon D3s, 24-120mm f14 @58mm, 1/320 sec, f4, ISO500)

©Copyright Gary S. Chapman 2010

Panama: Workshop Video

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:26:08 +0000

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68qB-ZdpUaY[/youtube]

Panama: Teaching

admin — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:48:34 +0000

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 with a Canon 5D Mark II and combined in Quicktime 7 at 10 frames per second.

Panama Photo Workshops-Gary S. Chapman-Group Photo from gary s chapman on Vimeo.

Panama Photo Workshops
Tito Herrera

Home: Do you need a second passport?

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:46:38 +0000

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 while traveling on the other passport. 2) Safety/security concerns if you travel between Israel and anti Israeli States.

There are at least ten countries that will not ordinarily allow entry into their country if your passport includes a stamp from Israel: Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

The steps necessary to getting the second passport can be a bit confusing. Technically, you should be able to do this through whichever US Post Office also processes normal passports. But, after an hour of waiting and discussions, my local postmaster told me he had been in his job more than 25 years and had never heard of a “normal human being” obtaining a second passport. He refused my application.

I then chose to use a passport/visa commercial service, Passport Visas Express . To get a second passport, you need two copies of the DS-82 Passport Application, your current passport, two passport photos, evidence of immediate travel (copy of itinerary or copy of ticket), or a business letter stating the need for a second passport. I chose to include both my itinerary and a business letter from the NGO I was working with. You will also need a personal letter stating your reasons for a second passport.

As far as the costs, the government fee is $170.00 and the Passport Visas Express fee is $99.00. Remember, you can skip the $99.00 fee if your post office is a bit more accommodating.

One final thing you need to know is that your second passport is only valid for two years.

Middle of the Ocean: Sailing

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:30:08 +0000

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 are not what hold your attention. It is the present…the now. Are the sails trimmed? Is my course correct? Am I on a collision course with anything? I could go on and on with sailing analogies, but suffice it to say…this trip has helped me refocus on the moment. Leave the regrets of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow behind. Today, this moment, is where I need to concentrate.

P.S. Technical note: Many of you know that my wife and I produce stock photography for Getty. It is this relationship with Getty that has made many of the NGO/non-profit shoots possible. (See this interview on the Scott Kelby Blog for further info) I carry a camera everywhere I go. There are always opportunities to shoot stock, and this sailing trip was no different. I did not go with many preconceived ideas of what I wanted to shoot. The photos just came as I experienced what was happening around me.