http://www.adamchapinphotography.com/

Adam Chapin Photography, Asheville, NC (2025)

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.

09/12/2024

Some of my earliest memories are of old Italian street fairs where I grew up. Sliding down, what seemed at the time, huge slides on potato sacks as I tried to out slide friends or family. Hearing your parents complain about the price of tickets and food and lines. And then of course there was the Italian fried dough…not to be mistaken with fried dough covered in powdered sugar which is an abomination in comparison.

To me it’s still not a successful fair without that Italian fried dough. Maybe that’s the northeasterner in me, I don’t know.

But one way in which no fair has ever disappointed me is in the people watching. I love the slice of our American culture we get to see and be immersed with at a fair. It’s a solid reminder of who our neighbors are and who we are as a country.

In times of debates and name calling and division and hatred and picking a side and exhaustive news cycles, the fair feels like an oasis of sorts.

Camera: Fujifilm GFX 50r
Lens: Fujinon 55mm 1.7

07/19/2024

See as much as you can.

Tell stories of your adventures.

Laugh hard at your own jokes.

Don’t wait until next year.

Make sure those you love, family and friends, know it.

If you’re afraid of it and it won’t kill you, do it…at least once.

Take rest days.

If you have kids, go on a solo trip with them every now and again. If you don’t, go on a solo trip and find yourself.

If you can run, sprint occasionally and feel your body move.

Share a compliment with a stranger.

Cry at a movie.

Become engrossed in a book.

Remember that no one is really paying any attention to your mistakes (or your successes) but you.

Get outside everyday.

Watch the sunrise.

If there is a watering hole or a pool, always cannonball first.

Hug your friends.

Find three things you are grateful for everyday.

Embrace your vulnerabilities.

Create one thing everyday - write, cook, draw, sew, sing, etc.

Go easy on yourself, if you wouldn’t say it to your best friend don’t say it to yourself.

Always take accountability for your words and actions.

Forgive when you can.

Remember that ‘I’m sorry’ can go a long way.

Write down 10 affirmations about yourself, and in tough times come back to it, reread it, and remember who you are.

Listen to your body, your brain will lie to you more often than your body will.

Be audacious.

Have at the ready, at least: one book, one show, one movie, one destination, one restaurant, one band, one museum, and one joke at all times.

Buy some art in case your phone dies.

Spend an afternoon lying down on the grass and watching the clouds drift.

Smell a forest.

If there is a wave, try to ride it - in the ocean and in life.

07/13/2024

What if you didn’t have to be great at one specific thing? What would be just one or two more things you would try?

What if you could be pretty good at a whole bunch of things? What if you didn’t have to be a master of anything, but instead a skilled Jack of all trades?
Why do we always have the tick to become reductionary?

Do we have to be like everyone else to become who we want to be? What if we knew that it’s all already been done?

Some of the things I have been thinking about in the process of making work recently.

What’s been on your mind?

07/01/2024

No Grey’s Papaya here…maybe next time.

06/12/2024

Whenever you see some of the great western frontier paintings be that Re*****on, Hennings, Moran, and even more recently like Maggiori, there is an undeniable attraction to the clouds and the sky.

Every time I travel out west it’s the first thing I begin to notice in the change of the landscape, just how much of the sky is visible compared to home.

And not simply the openness of it but the dramatics of it as well. Watching a storm roll in or just across the sky from miles and miles away. To see the darkening occur in one area while blue sky sits in another. Or in the case of the Badlands, how the clouds shadows move across the landscape so incredibly quickly dotting out certain mountains and freckling others in the passing light.

I’m so happy with so much of what I had the opportunity to photograph out west this May. These are just a few of my favorites.

Which one(s) resonate with you? Can you imagine one framed large on your wall?

06/08/2024

I recently submitted some photographic work to a few open calls.

If you don’t know what an open call is, it is a platform, gallery, museum, organization etc that is allowing for open submissions of work. Some accept a variety of mediums and some don’t. Some have a theme and some don’t. And so you submit and then at some point you find out if you won, placed, or not - whether that be a money prize, a gallery show, an online exhibition etc.

One of the open calls I submitted to offered (with an added cost) a written review of my images.

I submitted several black and white images and two color.

They noted:

“color is ideal for complex environments because various colors help various elements inside the frame to be separated… (and) B&W is more suitable for minimal and geometrical scenes with high contrast and monochromatic backgrounds…You treat color and B&W successfully, choosing the suitable aesthetic for each scene.”

Never being one who follows rules, but leans heavily on the feeling of each image, I’d never thought of the uses like this. I saw it as one or the other because of how it felt to me, but somewhere in my brain or heart or both I was making these connections to some degree without the knowledge of this theory/rule.

At the end of the day a review or critique is simply one person’s opinion of what they see. And being that in this situation that I had no idea as to even who the critique author was, as they keep it anonymous, I’m left to scratch my head a little bit. But nonetheless they got me to think about color and black and white with a little more awareness - and I think that anything that gets you question your own process is worth your time.

05/30/2024

This is the story of Tumbly.

Tumbly is a tumbleweed. His mother, father, and two sisters had left him, or rather he left them, at the edge of the Grasslands area in central South Dakota.

As they attempted to cross the fenced border, Tumbly’s family was caught by the cross rails while Tumbly sailed through and his father howled “don’t stop rolling until you find home.” But Tumbly didn’t know what home even meant.

He rolled as the gusty Dakota winds allowed, crossing paths with other orphaned tumbleweeds. He rolled by, and abruptly over, the infamous Pakowhiled Thorny Brush Gang known for creating a super tumbleweed engulfing smaller brush as they rolled - once you were in, there was no coming out.

For two days and nights, Tumbly rolled on until he hit a red stucco wall where the wind couldn’t get to him anymore.

A kind woman took him in and for years they travelled together in the Northerly Kensington Tumbleweed Roll and Strut Shows, a niche offshoot of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Tumbly became the most famous tumbleweed in South Dakota, they even made tshirts of ol’Tumbly that read “when the goin gets tough, you just gotta roll with it!” and Tumbly even made the cover of Rogue - the high fashion Tumbleweed magazine.

But times got hard, the grasslands dried, tumbleweeds were amassing and people were tired of all the loitering. The roll and strut shows closed down, money got tight, and whooping conversation in the house became silence.

Tumbly had to go, so he took the first gust out. He hitched across the derechos and made his way to Scenic where he found a small home and lives there to this day.

Though his branches are weaker, and his connections fewer (Scenic is not quite pro-Tumbleweed yet) Tumbly has found contentedness in his latter years just hearing the Meadowlarks outside and he’ll still pose in his doorway for the rare tourist photo. He hasn’t found love, but he’s found what he feels is home.

(Dreamed up + created at Badlands Workshop with the help of + .tings + )

05/28/2024

Tokyo, Japan - Part 7 (the end)

This was the very last photo I made on my trip. It’s super grainy, not particularly well composed, all in all it’s average at best. But it means everything to me.

I had sidled into a small izakaya in Omoide Yokocho of Shinjuku (a web of very small alleyways filled with even smaller restaurants with smoke billowing out and bars with occasional loud shouts of “kanpai!” and chatter).

As I was sitting between dishes, feeling well fed and enjoying my beer, I looked around the eight person stall. I watched the five old Japanese men (who’d glared at me as I shimmied in), who were now hammered, bust each others balls. At least I assume that’s what was going on, as I’ve mentioned I don’t speak Japanese. But I feel ball busting is an international language.

And ironically, it was at this moment that I felt comfortable, truly comfortable in my own gaijin skin on this trip. I wasn’t anxious about not knowing the language. I didn’t feel awkward about being the only foreigner. I wasn’t worried about screwing up. I was just content.

I had remembered a text a friend sent me earlier in the trip, where he said he was proud of me. I didn’t get it. I brushed it off thinking why would anyone be proud. But I got it now.

Travelling solo requires something different. It asks you to accept that it won’t all be easy. But in the end you get to know a place, but more importantly yourself in a whole new light and it’s pretty fu***ng brilliant.

I realized that I had taught myself that I didn’t ever need to wait for a travel companion again, or know a whole language, or have everyday mapped out, or worry about screwing up. That in the end I would be alright solo or not.

If you didn’t know already from the myriad of posts, I have fallen in love with Japan, the people, the places, the culture and the food - but maybe more so what it helped me to see and to feel in myself.

ありがとう、日本！またね。

05/08/2024

Tokyo, Japan - Part 6

I graduated college with a major in psychology, but there was a good six month stint where I started dreaming of switching my major to architecture. I spent a couple weeks in the architecture studios working on a project for another class and just really loved getting to check out all the work people were doing from drawings to CAD designs to intricately crafted mock ups.

Though after seeing several of my friends eat, sleep, work, s**t, and at times go crazy while never leaving the studio during that week, I figured I had made a decent choice.

But I still always appreciate interesting and arresting architectural design. I still love architectural photography, though don’t think I have the patience for how that gets done.

Japan had so much beautiful architecture and I tried to make photos of the ones that really made me stop. Ones that were simply beautiful and ones that seemed to tell a story and then others that were tied uniquely to the landscape of that season, and of course a few that looked straight out of an anime novel.

I could have spent three days, easy, just exploring architecture in Tokyo. Might have to make that a thing next time I can swing the 24 hour flight ✈️

04/26/2024

Tokyo, Japan - Part 4

If you have ever thought about traveling to Japan and done even just smallest bit of research, you know about the famous jihanki or vending machines.

They freckle much of the street and landscape throughout Japan - certainly where I travelled. From the smallest alleyways of Tokyo to the countryside of Kutchan you don’t have to go far to find treats.

Most machines have drinks, hot and cold options, and some offer food. But it’s less what they offer and more what the represent which Japan tees up so well which is abundant convenience.

The joke around a lot of Japan is how foreigners make photos of the jihanki, and so I did my part and continued the stereotype.
#自動販売機

04/23/2024

Tokyo, Japan - Part 3

One of my favorite cities to explore in the rain is Paris. It has a glow about it and an overall feeling that just feels amazing. If you’ve ever seen Midnight in Paris with Rachael McAdams and Owen Wilson you may remember his line “Paris is the most beautiful in the rain.” And while I still think that’s true, Tokyo is right next to it.

One of the things that blew my mind when I arrived was just how stacked, literally on top of one another, all of the businesses are through the city. And so because of that you have all of the heavily lit signs almost every where you go.

And so when it rains everything is set into this neon and LED light haze and then is reflected back up off the dark wet streets.

If Paris wins for being the most romantic in the rain, then Tokyo wins for being the most futuristic/sci-fi for sure.

I wandered around Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harijuku the one night we had rain. I loved popping in and out of alleys and out onto streets and getting lost just to watch another corner of locals and travelers covered in umbrellas make their ways home and out.

The first image in this series is my favorite because it feels like two times colliding. I saw the woman walking as something out of an old movie as where the background feels more technologically anime. The contrast of those two things brought me in and maybe it does you too.

04/22/2024

For as long as I can remember I have been walking off into the woods, up mountains, over rocks, past trees, across streams, and through snow.

Nature has been both a place of hiding from reality as well as grounding back in it.

From hiking Angels Landing in Zion NP to exploring Damnation Creek in Redwoods to enjoying a beer after a long walk up to the Aescherhaus in Switzerland to wandering the coast of Burgundy or overlooking the Sea of Japan while snowboarding - I am always in awe of the natural world that surrounds us.

I don’t know what we can do to help this planet of ours given the damage we do to it regularly. And by the way things seem to be going, it won’t get better soon. Maybe today we can all go out and just be quiet for a moment, lay in the grass, climb a tree, hike a trail, take a swim or even just go smell the spring flowers.

Try to find one way to show your own appreciation for this planet we call home.

Happy Earth Day.

04/17/2024

Tokyo, Japan - Part 1

Camera and lens choice for this trip was harder than most, because how often can you come to Japan?

So the kit for the trip was:

Fujifilm GFX 50r
Fujifilm X-Pro 2
Ricoh Griii
Fujifilm 18mm 2.8
Fujifilm GF45 2.8

And lastly my new TTArtisan 11mm 2.0

I always wanted a fisheye lens and had never shot with one and so this was going to be new to me. I thought it would make candids easier, but quickly realized that you have to get really close, I mean REALLY REALLY CLOSE. And then the vignette was too much so I had to shoot in square which isn’t my favorite. And lastly it’s all manual so I had to zone focus for a lot of my shots and hope for the best as I hadn’t practiced that in a long time. Though by the end I started getting a flow with it and letting its faults become some of its fun.

Not sure what other uses I can find for this lens, but I am sure the fun is just beginning.

These are just a few of my fave images from the TTArtisan - and maybe even from the whole trip. Especially that first one, that little girls and her big round glasses and orange lenses reminds me of a young Iris Apfel.

Stay tuned for a few more of these wide gems when I share my experience from Team Labs!

04/11/2024

Last fall I had the chance to see a partial eclipse. Almost a full, but just a crescent wedge of the sun remained. I was in western central New Mexico on what I think was a mesa on reservation land. With my chair set up and camera ready (albeit with the wrong lens and an ND filter that didn’t do the trick) I sat and waited. When my camera failed me I used my eclipse viewing glasses and placed them over my iPhone and with a lot of frustration, got enough of the sequencing to be okay with it. I recall when at its peak it darkened a little, it got cool quickly, and the animals in the area got noisy.

So when this eclipse came around I was less pushed to go find it. I went out mushroom hunting instead and came up empty handed there. A friend had mentioned he was going to do something with the eclipse, but I just sort of boo-pooed it and said I wasn’t going to make a single photo.

But as it happened, I was on the MST (Mountains-To-Sea Trail) at the peak. The clouds were heavy and so the sun shone through intermittently. I stopped and just waited to feel the cool, notice the darkening and maybe even witness the wild life lose it a little bit. But none of that really happened. It cooled slightly, but I’d never have noticed had I not been looking for it. Still for some reason I couldn’t let the moment go without documentation.

I didn’t bring any glasses so I just used my new to me Ricoh GRii, pointed it at the sun and made what I made. I knew there was no way I was going to get a likeness to the eclipse and I accepted that, but I still wanted something that was my own. Not good. Just mine. So I made these multiple exposures. For some reason dice was in my head, so I went with something like that - negating a sixth because one it’s an unlucky number and two my camera will only do five multiple exposures in camera.

And as I was getting in my car I saw the last scene and couldn’t resist especially with the sign reading “Enjoy the view. Watch the road.”

Of course afterwards I saw everything you saw. And now finding the path on the next total eclipse has made it to my list of things to do and see.

04/08/2024

Hokkaido, Japan - Part 10

I knew going into this trip that I hadn’t planned something that was going to be slow paced. Every day in Hokkaido was filled minus the one day I banged myself up on the mountain. And with all the ice and snow and ramen and still flapping fish sushi and the beer and konbini snacks and photographs made it was time to head to Tokyo.

Just a friendly travel tip if you are bringing your board (or skis) to Hokkaido or travelling with large luggage - get to New Chitose airport two hours early (for domestic travel…more if international) because the lines for baggage check are LONG. Glad I’d made some quick friends at Iwanai because without them I might have missed my flight.

03/08/2024

Hokkaido, Japan - Part 4

Today is a month since I landed in Japan.

The whole trip I kept uttering to myself (as one does when they travel solo…kidding, I talk to myself all the time), “holy s**t! I’m in Japan.” Everyday. Multiple times a day. It never landed that it was for real for real.

And now that I’m back in Asheville, behind my computer, doing every day normal routine bulls**t, I still think to myself “holy s**t! I was in Japan!”

I was so glad I chose to rent a car, because if you have ever travelled with a photographer or an artist, you know first hand that car trips can take longer than Google Maps can predict as we have stop every so often as something catches our eye.

Also, anyone know any native Japanese folks or anyone proficient in Japanese who’d be up for occasional language lessons and conversation with this ol’gaijin?

03/06/2024

Hokkaido, Japan - Part 3

While in Sapporo, I was pinching and pulling on Google maps and found this spot called Hill of The Buddha. I hadn’t been to a Buddhist site since I was in high school and looking to meditate at a shrine in Philadelphia, so I decided this would be a stop on my way to Jozankei.

The Buddha sits at 44’ tall but the unique part about it is that it is built into a hill at which the top is open and the buddhas head barely pops out. There are also about twenty massive Easter Island statues on the grounds, supposedly donated to Japan, though why they are placed here I didn’t figure out.

The experience itself of seeing the Buddha was special. You walk through a short tunnel before you reach the Buddha, so he is revealed to you slowly as you walk which felt meditative in itself.

I made quick friends with an Aussie named Ray who was also travelling solo and we exchanged cameras to make photos of one another as proof we were actually there. He is an avid stamp collector of Japanese shrines and ports - which I learned is a huge hobby for a ton of people. Towns, shrines, and other places really work hard to make creative and in some cases even handwritten stamps for collectors. Something I think I would like to collect going forward but this wasn’t the trip for it.

As for the driving, it wasn’t bad at all. I was nervous about it before the trip but once I got there it was clear that years growing up and learning to drive in the Northeast more than prepared me for this type of driving. So if you’re nervous, don’t be. Unless you can’t drive in snow, in which case, the concern is warranted.

03/05/2024

It’s not for everyone. But New York is like a drug for me. As soon as I get off the plane I adopt this different personality. I walk faster. I feel more determined. I believe I even think faster. Everything feels more purposeful somehow.

People eating at the corner deli seems more interesting than where I live. The food seems better than where I live, especially the pizza. The push to just go walk around the block a few times or expand your circle seems greater.

Not sure what it is. But I’ve wanted a piece of it since I was younger. Even though my first memory of New York is being screamed at as an 8 year old kid by a homeless man in the bathroom at Grand Central - I still love that city.

I like how when it’s cold out and the wind comes down the avenues and it makes you wonder if you should have stayed in, but you keep walking because it’s New York. I even like when it blazing hot and so you dip into a store just to use their AC for a minute. I like how train routes have their own personality. I like how loud it is. I like how you can hit up the Met, the MoMa and the Guggenheim in one afternoon. I like how New Yorkers think they are the center of the universe even though the rest of know it’s not true. I like how everyone has a story about how they got there, why they stayed and sometimes even when they’re leaving. I like how you can walk outside at 3am and if someone told you it was 10pm it would still seem right. I even like the way it smells - walked in.

Yeah, I had dreams of one day living there. And I thought that as I got older that dream would just go away. But it hasn’t. It’s still crazy after all these years.

For now I just get to visit sometimes, see a few things, and take a few photographs. And I walk a little faster, feel a little smarter, eat a little more than I should, and I dream about the life I would have been living there.

Where do you envision yourself living if it’s not where you already are?

03/04/2024

Hokkaido, Japan - Part 2

Funny story from Sapporo.

I wanted to take a long walk and make some photos as well as find some lunch, so I spotted the Sapporo brewery about a thirty minute walk away and left. The food there is Hokkaido traditional jingisukan (Ghengis Khan), which is where you cook for yourself at your table on this large domed cast iron pan (not sure pan is the right word for it maybe pot is better).

It was about $30 for all you can eat, which consists of some veggies and then a mix of pork, chicken, and their ghengis khan lamb. You are given a quick instructional on how to cook and then they let you on your way.

One additional thing that comes with your food is this sauce, it kind of looks like a marinade. So after two rounds of cooking I started using the marinade.

After a couple rounds of cooking the marinated meat I noticed my pot was smoking more than others. Again, not enough to call the fire department or set off an alarm (which I can’t imagine this place even has because the cumulative smoke would certainly set them off, but back to the story) but enough to notice my smoke was more significant than everyone else’s.

I could send signals, Bugs Bunny style, if I had wanted.

As I looked around, I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong compared to the tables around me. I’d followed the directions. So I let it go as a ‘must be my pot wasn’t as clean as the others’ sort of thought.

I went to order another Sapporo Classic off of the iPad at the table when I noticed a tab that said “how to cook”, so I ordered my beer and then went back to that tab.

Step 1: place fat cube on pot and allow it to coat. - I’d done that.
Step 2: place your veggies around the edge. - Cool. Did that too.
Step 3: place your meat on the domed portion and allow to cook. - I’m basically Gordon fu***ng Ramsay at this point, got it.
Step 4: dip in tasty sauce and enjoy! - whoa whoa whoa, the waiter never mentioned step 4.

…Continued in comments…

03/02/2024

Hokkaido, Japan - Part 1

After 26 hours of door to door travel, including driving after 25 hours of travel on the other side of the road on the other side of the car and in between snowbanks 8’ tall I made it to Sapporo.

After a good sleep I was ready to walk and Sapporo delivered.

The Winter Festival was in full swing with local youth dance acts, more snow carvings than I’be ever seen, lines for free Asahi beer, lines for ramen pop up shops, and the occasional line for the smokers huts.

I took out my favorite camera, the Fujifilm GFX 50r, and my new to me XPro2 and just wandered.

I’ve never been to a place where snow is so part of daily life for so long, but in Hokkaido it is. Many of the sidewalks are heated and so are clear but those that aren’t are covered in a base of 8-12” of ice and snowpack. Having slip on crampons is fairly normal, as is the occasional fall - both of which I managed to do without.

Travelling solo internationally was terrifying, and add to it through a country where I could only speak 8-10 phrases was even scarier. Just hearing the occasional English word from other tourists turned into auditory whiplash at times in the first 2-3 days. Needless to say I was fairly silent save for the quiet click of my cameras.