Chamberlain, Dennis


From early childhood, I have been a story teller. My father was a lifelong Eastman Kodak employee, and he gave me my first camera when I was seven. It would have made sense that I would tell stories with photographs, and yet that took some time to develop.  In college, I worked the late-night shift at Kodak (dad was the processing lab manager in Dallas) and my imaginary stories collided with the harshness of reality. There at the lab I was introduced to uncensored, behind the scenes, private and secret views of life, many of which were never meant to be seen by anyone other than the maker. Included in all of this chaos were beautiful scenes of America that I remember to this day. Seeing this range of beauty and harshness, of sadness and euphoria, had a profound effect on me.  Experiencing such extreme contrasts gave me more appreciation of the beauty in life. It also brought about, for better or worse, a blend of reality and fiction that is an integral part of my being.
Later in my life I became a serious photographer and moved to New Mexico, and it was no surprise that the beauty of the terrain made my heart soar. My artistic goal for landscape photography became clear: to convey the thrill and to capture what is in my heart when witnessing the wonderful scenes of our state and the rest of the Southwest.
The spectacular landscapes awe and inspire me, sending me down an endless path to try to share my passions through my photography. In particular, the textures of the
Southwestern terrain are a focus for me, and they are recurring themes in my scenic
photography. To try to communicate what I feel - rather than simply what my camera
clinically records - requires all of the various tools available today, and I use them
without apology or restraint. I want to reproduce the drama, vibrancy and emotion that emerges when I am on the shooting location.
Now, in 2026, my photography work ranges from “real” to “imagined” and all things in
between - from moderately edited photos to completely original compositions, in which I start with a “blank canvas” and create the entire scene using elements or “pieces” of other photographs I have taken. In these compositions, all of the elements come from my photographs (I do not use any artificial intelligence artwork in my creations). It is in these imagined compositions that the story telling from my childhood finally comes to life.