http://www.adamchapinweddings.com/

Adam Chapin Photography, Asheville, NC (2025)

01/18/2025

Six years ago I realized that part of what I see and feel in photography is a funeral procession. I don’t mean that someone has died. But that some part of us is no longer fully here, those cells are no longer the same, hair longer, face fuller, eyes wiser, skin worn; and so in a sense we are constantly passing on.

Places are no different. We grab on for all we can, grow calluses as we hang on tighter and tighter but the lesson is always the same: notice, appreciate, love, and let go.

But photography is magic, it holds it, the moment, the person, the place, the light, the shadow and suspends it forever for us to return to. And despite that while it tells us not only what we had but what we lost, I can’t help but to always see it as a gift.

01/15/2025

:::Ode To The Overthinker:::

Are you in or are you out?
Are you working towards something or stepping away?
Maybe you don’t have to be moving at all.
This could be your opportunity to stand still.
I’m not saying waste your time and take a brake.
You’ve taken those.
No, this is a time to recognize the work you have done.
Note that I didn’t say celebrate.
Just take it in, as I know you haven’t.
Already onto the next, huh?
Or perhaps wishing you’d done steps 148 and 751 better?
Somewhere you learned if you kept moving you’d be good.
So…are you good?
Or are you fine?
There’s a difference there and you feel it.
Learning to trust yourself has been a tall task.
Finding that people pleasing way to say:
“This ain’t working for me”
But comes out as:
“Yeah, looking forward to next time.”
You’re exhausted and you don’t know why.
Sure, you don’t sleep well, but you get enough.
You go to the gym and you even eat pretty well.
Friends text you and say hi.
Family tells you that they love you.
Your therapist keeps saying:
“You have good eyes on this.”
And yet you still feel that nagging sense that it’s off.
Maybe now was not the time to start trusting yourself.
Getting anything completed has become impossible.
That’s not to say you don’t have pots in the fire.
You have all the pots and all the fires, or so it feels.
And you even know that most of those pots aren’t needed.
Most of those pots aren’t even yours, they just feel like it.
S**t. Isn’t that the worst?
But here you are stirring, pacing, ruminating, and judging.
And as you sit there feeling the weight.
As it begins to hang heavily.
Not over.
Not near.
But on.
You just want to run.
Or appease.
Then you get upset you stopped to look around at all.
It’s got to be better than before.
You’ve got to be better than this.
That’s when you feel most tired, but never at night.
And you wonder if chameleons tire of changing colors too.

12/31/2024

I haven’t done traditional “new years resolutions” in years. I started doing a self-review in November around my birthday because that is my new year.

But if you do resolutions, I hope it’s to take the bull by the horns this year - whatever that means to you. Whether I know you or not I wish you security, health, and love. And if that comes on the first day or the last day, it’s the perfect time.

I do wish for my town of Asheville to grow through these muddy waters and to come out better than where we were before Helene.

May we all find a little more kindness, patience, resilience, and perspective.

And if you have a little extra cash in your pockets post holidays, this image is available on my website as a limited edition print, get it now before the price goes up. Check the link in my profile.

12/28/2024

This isn’t from any series on my website, or some client work I have done, it’s not even a personal project.

This here is what 27 years of friendship looks like.

We live on opposite sides of the country, have our own jobs, our own families, our own day to day ups and downs. But every time we get together we are instantly still the same two stupid kids from Philly eating Lorenzo’s pizza on the curb at 2am laughing about something the other said, or breaking each others balls over some mundane issue, or sharing space and experience to help the other through a time, or sometimes just sitting there without having to say a word and knowing that’s absolutely perfect.

And if you want to know how to make your friends stand in for a photo for and with you, just wait until you are about to leave to take them to the airport and tell them they ain’t getting a ride unless they get in front of the camera. Works every time.

12/24/2024

Kicking off our fun old fashioned family Christmas by driving out into the Hokkaido countryside in the old all wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape.

From my ongoing series “In Our Own Little Worlds”. See more at the link in my profile.

12/22/2024

Do you remember those moments you were given independence? The times your parents dropped you off and said “be back here by ___X____.” Sure they saddled you with a sibling or cousin to watch or a friends little brother or sister, but you were free.

It’s weird when you become an adult and there is no one to give you that freedom anymore. It’s up to you and yet we often choose to be stuck. I can name a handful of moments over the last ten years where I realized I had given myself that independence, that time away doing what I wanted where I wanted and how I wanted.

May we all learn to give that to ourselves a little more often and feel a little bit more whole and connected because of it.

This photo is from an ongoing series entitled “See You At The Fair” which can be seen on my website at the link in my profile.

12/19/2024

In 2014, I was in Pittsburgh to celebrate my friends 40th birthday. As we made our way through a hangover breakfast, I asked if we could go to the Carnegie Museum of Art.

No reason other than I love wandering art museums.

As it was, they had a massive exhibition for Duane Michals. I had never heard of him, but when I entered the exhibition I was blown away with his approach and style.

He writes stories or short lines on his prints and his prints are often short storyboards in and of themselves holding two or three or four images on each print. As someone who always struggled to understand how you get something across in one image, Duane’s work spoke to me - it said f**k their silly rules, make what you need to make.

There is a quote by Duane Michals that I still carry with me: “The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at… We’re not our eyeballs, we’re our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they’re totally wrong… That’s why I consider most photographs extremely boring – just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colours have been added to protect the innocent. It’s just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience – grief, loneliness – how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see.”

So what do you feel here? And compare that to what you see?

12/18/2024

Anyone else see the final episode of Yellowstone?

Anyone else find themselves bubbling up in tears?

This image I made in South Dakota came to mind as I watched the end of what was a great series for both my imagination and my day dreaming content.

I call this one How A Cowboy Stays Hydrated.

12/17/2024

It’s all temporary. Unless, of course, it’s permanent marker.

no. 4124

12/05/2024

I was honored to have this work shared with the other top 100 artists of the “Something Personal” exhibition on November 23rd.

This work is from my time spent wandering New Mexico last fall. I had crossed over the border to experience Canyon de Chelly, which is a beautiful and historically and culturally important land for the Diné. My time here and the stories shared with me by (an amazing guide) led me to read Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides to understand more about this land and what the US government did to the Diné here. It’s a tragic history and treatment of a beautiful people.

I had gotten up to watch the sunrise over the canyon, and was welcomed to watch a trail race that takes place in and along the canyon floor. I stood on the edge with family members of the runners, many of whom were Diné. Their family yelled out and cheered on their runners in diné bizaad. To hear those words echoing off the canyon floor and deep through the canyon walls was a moment I won’t soon forget.

As I drove out, this was the scene just to the side of the road. This white horse laid down next to this dark horse. My hope was that despite its history, that this represented a peace in this area, a place of refuge not just for the Diné, but for the animals too.

12/04/2024

This here is . I first met Eddie in 2015. He was set up at his desk with one of his many typewriters at and offering up on-the-spot poetry. My wife and I asked him if he would write something for our kids, and he asked what were two things the kids were into. We didn’t need to think hard, we said “superheroes and farts”. He wrote up a gem which still hangs in our home today.

Eddie has been a resident of Chimney Rock for over twenty years, and what now sits below his cabin is something very different than what he has known. Massive trucks haul dirt up and down the now three times as wide Rocky Broad River. Dump trucks removing debris are going in and out of town. And volunteer crews, contractors and DOT are cleaning and rebuilding damaged businesses on the main drag and trying to figure out how to repair the roads and bridges.

It’s hard to really see the full scope of the damage here as there is only so much you can access. But much like other areas I have visited, there is no straight line of destruction, it’s much more random. While one house is cut in half land open wide like a doll house, as if a massive saw blade swung down and sliced it off - less than 40’ down the same line (literal neighbors) another home appears to just be missing some earth around its now river front foundation, but otherwise seems intact from the outside.

People from out of town and around the country keep asking “how are things now?” And I share that some parts are slowly opening, and many areas are beginning to make some headway, but that the people in the harder hit areas are very much struggling to figure out what next. I encourage them to come up and find ways to help support the local businesses, but I don’t know who is coming at this point.

Eddie is back in his truck with his camper in tow and his dog Fred riding shotgun, because for now, Chimney Rock - much like many areas - is a long way out from resembling anything even close to what we remember.

11/07/2024

Two days ago I turned 46.

Yes, make all the cute little remarks about a birthday on Election Day, I’m sure I’m not tired of those.

Every year on my birthday I think about the year before, it’s my New Years. I try to find gratitude in the lessons I have learned and the strides I have made and the opportunities I gave myself to do more and the help I have received to get through it all. And I do that mainly by looking back at my photos for that last year. This year was no different.

I feel so fortunate to have seen as much as I have this last year from a solo trip to Japan, to a self-realizing trip to South Dakota, to shared adventures and deep conversations and half-witted jokes with family and friends all over the country and to times just quietly sitting.

My biggest take away this year is I don’t know s**t.

Everything I thought I knew about myself seemed to shift this year. And everything I believed about the world and the people around me shifted with that.

The phrase “we are more than one thing” stands out as the mantra for this last year.

I have so much to be excited for in this coming year. Things I will be happy to share here soon. Changes. Good and necessary changes and new directions and projects and things I have wanted and wished for and am finally taking the steps to see them through.

According to modern medicine, with some luck, decent genes and access to medicine I should live to around 80, that’s 34 more years and I don’t intend to waste wondering what if, I’ve got some big ass dreams.

11/03/2024

No long drawn out story here. I don’t have any words or new feelings to share here. Just going through images I have made this last week and the previous four weeks becomes massively depressing - it’s a lot and I say that knowing how lucky I am.

How lucky my family is. How lucky my friends are. Lucky…again a word I keep using and I keep hearing used. As if this was just about the unlucky vs the fortunate. As if there are winners and losers. But these are the words we have.

So far we have raised $1358. I am keeping this open for this next week before bringing it out to the two organizations - Neighbors Feeding Neighbors and Beloved Asheville. I’d love to raise another $642. Can you help me do this?

If you have donated, thank you. If you haven’t, please consider donating what you can. At least share this post and a link to the Venmo listed below.

https://venmo.com/u/Adam_Brophy

And if you would prefer to get something for a donation, I am still raising money through my website print shop and will be purchasing supplies needed by many locations with all net profits. To access that you can copy the link below or you can go to the link in my bio.

https://www.adamchapinphotography.com/prints-and-framed-art

This is far, far, far from over.

10/30/2024

We are just over a month after Hurricane Helene crashed through Asheville and Western NC.

Driving through town continues to be an otherworldly experience. Piles of debris, but that word isn’t fair, it’s negates what it reallly once used to be.

Cars that used to transport people from places to place and take them on trips and nights they just needed to drive. Art that hung in places chosen so that the work would be seen and felt at just the right times to remember that day or place. Chairs that used to hold the weight of its owner everyday, the particularly hard days and even the easier ones. And the walls that heard and saw all of the excitement from the opening of a business to the celebration of a birthday, and also the loss of a family member or the irreversible change in the path of life - those walls held it all in when we couldn’t.

That and more is what sits on the roadsides now.

The helicopters have stopped for the most part. The huge convoys of supplies have turned to normal traffic. People take runs and walks amidst the debris as if none of it was there. And the news is refocused on the election and Gaza and Thanksgiving dessert recipes.

But communities here are still hauling things away, letting walls dry out, still shoveling mud and scrubbing where elbow grease is needed. Musicians show up at the end of the days sometimes and people still smile and laugh and tell stories and so we haven’t lost our humanity. And the talk of reopenings fills us with hope.

We keep moving.

If you can and would like to help I am still raising funds to donate here next week. We are at just over a $1000 and I’d love to reach at least $2000 in the next week if we can. Here is a link to my Venmo where I am collecting:

https://venmo.com/u/Adam_Brophy

10/18/2024

Micaville - October 6th

There are so many places we simply pass through while on our way to our destinations. We see things as they blow by our windows and have just enough time to process what it is, but never what it means. In documenting the clean up efforts and the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, I have found that I am making a lot more stop along the way in places I have only seen from my car window over the years.

Micaville is one of those places I found myself in for hours and talking to shop owners and residents.

I spoke with some of the volunteers helping to clean out the Micaville Outpost, which has been a space for not only artists but tourists as they made their way up to Mt Mitchell. But now with the destruction and the areas points of interest being closed indefinitely (the Blue Ridge Parkway and parts of Pisgah NF), the Outpost will for the time being have a similar fate.

As I was walking back through the neighborhood beyond downtown, I met John Silverman, a well known local glassblower. I saw him struggling with setting a ladder and asked if I could help, he didn’t think he just said “yes, please.” I watched and helped as John emptied his exposed basement that was blown out during the flood of the South Toe River.

John did not make it out before the river flooded as there was no real warning, and said that he and his dogs stayed in the living room while 30-40 mph waters rushed around his home. At one point he recalled hearing a loud pop, which turned out to be his basement wall, which flooded his basement and filled his studio and glassblowing equipment with thick mud. John is intent to get his studio up and running again.

At the time I was leaving to head up the road, a couple from Paris, Kentucky walked up to John’s house with shovels in hand and asked if they could help. Again, John didn’t hesitate, welcomed them in and got back to work.

10/14/2024

Meet Julia and Paul of . You may know them from a delicious chicken inasal or some crazy good ube for dessert as you enjoyed a fresh pint from on the edge of the French Broad River sometime over the last seven months.

This, however, was not one of those easy and beautiful Sunday afternoons. This is the beginning of getting their truck back in shape that was saved by the telephone pole in the background from being rushed down the river like so many other things during hurricane Helene.

And even though this was not a predicament they could have foreseen, they often have smiles on their faces, they are as light spirited as one can be in this circumstance, they are beyond kind, and they simply want to serve.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to see them do just that, as they shared hot meals of their chicken adobo and rice and their lumpia and rice with the Riverside neighborhood in Fletcher who just two weeks ago was waist deep in the waters of Cane Creek. Working out of the back of their friends’s truck (and Riverside residents Benji and Fermina), Julia and Paul are the embodiment of community - the people you show up for and the people who show up for you.

If you would like to help Julia and Paul and the rest of the Master BBQ team get back on their feet, you can do so directly through their GoFundMe page - https://gofund.me/8fc56cd9 .

10/01/2024

This is our town. What’s left of it.

Walking through River Arts yesterday I was swarmed with memories of beers at the Wedge, lunch at 12 Bones, runs along the river, and the time of having my work at Marquee.

While the sidewalk around the river remains, the rest is all but gone. Walls blown out, sludge up the walls, and art in the parking lot. I met an artist who had been in the RAD for 6 years and their studio has just truly been coming online and serving the community. He was tearfully filling his car with what he could as cops were forcing folks out for fear of looters.

Getting power back is just the tip of the iceberg. What our town will become, how we recover, and how it all looks over these next several years…it’s up to us. But for now it’s power, water, cell coverage, and lots of clashes with reality that this is only the beginning.

No one saw this coming. Being the epicenter of a hurricane in the middle of the Blue Ridge. So hard to wrap our heads around this, but grateful that most folks I know are safe.

09/13/2024

For my second day out at the I switched up cameras from the brick sized, medium format beast, Fujifilm GFX 50r down to the wee-bit, pocket friendly, Ricoh GRII.

Two entirely different looks.

Two entirely different post processes for me.

Two entirely different experiences.

But both really fulfilling and occasionally and equally frustrating.

The GFX can be slow to focus and fire, its not very inconspicuous, its facial recognition isn’t top notch, and the film recipes in the camera aren’t often ready to go straight out of the camera for me. But it feels great in the hand, the image quality is second to none, and it’s the first camera in a long time that makes me want to keep pushing.

The Ricoh on the other hand, it can miss focus from time to time, it’s not weather-sealed so it becomes a task to shoot with it in the rain, and the noise on shots 1600 iso and above is on the edge of waste to my eye. But it’s fast to shoot, it’s wildly inconspicuous (most of the time I have it at my side and just make photos from the hip), it fits in your front jeans pocket, the JPEG files are bananas good, and when it’s on its on.

At the end of the day, it’s just a tool for the day. I love both of them, and had fun at each outing at the fair. Now if the fair would just get the BB-gun shoot out the star booth and a good vendor selling Italian fried dough then all would be right with the world, but the deep fried honey bun wasn’t bad either.

Adam Chapin Photography