Stephen Chalmers

Stephen Chalmers received 2010 GAP Award funding to offset costs of equipment upgrades so that he may begin a new project tentatively titled On Water. In this project Stephen will photograph boaters from various socioeconomic groups. Other documentary projects include Transience, which documented individuals who live in recreational vehicles; both middle/upper-middle class migratory individuals known as “snowbirds;” and society outcasts who choose to live off the grid in the desert southwest.

Stephen received 2007 GAP Award funding to help offset the costs of materials required to mount and frame pieces in the series Dump Sites. Using a large format camera, he documented the specific sites where serial killers have disposed of their victims. “Many of the most notorious serial murderers were either from, or were active in, Washington State, including the nation’s most prolific (Gary Ridgeway, known as the ‘Green River Killer’) and the most famous (Ted Bundy) – along with more than forty others. The landscape of the Northwest allows a killer to move easily between urban and rural areas and has many wilderness areas where bodies can be disposed of in order to make them difficult to find. These locations are called ‘dump sites’ by law enforcement agencies.” The series was exhibited in 2007 at the PingYao International Photography Exhibition in China, and the Orange County Gallery of Art in Los Angeles and Spokane’s Chase Gallery in 2008.