Robert Chaponot was born in San Francisco and grew up in Mill Valley, California. He became interested in photography when he joined the Army where he spent a year at the Pentagon working out of the Army Photo Lab. The next year he was stationed in New York taking stills of the Army Production, “The Big Picture”. During his last year in the Army he was stationed in Okinawa taking criminal investigation pictures.
After military service he attended and graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. Upon graduation, Robert returned to San Francisco working in commercial photography. His assignments involved all aspects of photography from lab work to illustration photography. In 1968 he began working in Aerospace photographing the development of satellites, antennas and a variety or related products. In his spare time he worked at developing his expertise in all facets of nature photography.
It is obvious that Robert enjoys the entire photographic process from watching light change brightness or hue, to bringing in diffusers or reflectors to change the values of the image tones. Mating his love of photography to being a part of and loving nature, he looks at a subject from many different angles, from inside the flower to the top of a bridge.
In earlier years Robert spent much time photographing San Francisco seeking different angles or unusual lighting that sets his creation apart. He finds photography a never ending learning experience and enjoys experimenting with many different techniques. Some of these are paper negatives, colorization, posterization, motion blur and infra-red photography, working in both black and white and color, finding that each has it’s own rewards.
Retiring to Mariposa from the busy commercial scene is giving him time to continue to experiment with photographic process, to refine techniques and fully pursue his love of the photographic image.
Contact Robert at chaponotphotography@sti.net