Submitted by the artist
Robert Chaponot
Sierra Art Trails 2013 Catalog # 100
A lot of my love of photography is my love of nature and being a part of it. I like to look for different lighting or angles that give a different view or interpretation to a photograph.
Photography is a never ending learning experience and I have had a wonderful time experimenting with many different techniques. Some of the techniques include paper negatives, solarization, posterization, motion blur and infrared photography.
I like to work in both color and black and white photography, as each has its own rewards.
Growing up in Mill Valley my youth was spent hiking, fishing and camping on Mount Tamalpais and along the Pacific Coast.
My career in photography began when I joined the army and served as a photographer for three years, stationed in California, New Jersey, Washington DC. New York and Okinawa. I was lucky and had very interesting assignments.
In Washington, I worked out of the Pentagon, and in New York spent my time taking still photographs of the movie set for an Army production called the Big Picture. While in Okinawa, I worked for a magazine the army put out about Okinawa, its products and people.
After the army, I spent several years working in the casinos at Lake Tahoe at which time I decided I really wanted to be a photographer, so I moved to Santa Barbara and attended Brooks Institute of Photography.
Following graduation I moved to San Francisco for several years working for a commercial studio doing public relations, advertisement, architectural, darkroom work and everything a commercial studio requires.
I had a chance to go into aerospace photography and started working at a company called Philco Ford, as a senior photographer. I held the same position through several companies including Ford Aerospace, Loral, and Lockheed Martin. I enjoyed the work and spent the next 32 years photographing the development of satellites and many other cutting edge products.
Retired in 2000, my wife Alicia and I moved to Mariposa where we built our home and have a very large garden.
I still enjoy the wonder of all the things around me and continue to photograph them.
Click on images to enlarge.
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