About
ABOUT
Jason Chan is an American photographer, a Southern Californian now based in the D.C. area. He’s lucky he started as a kid, when you had to wait with anticipation while your film developed. That hooked him. Those early rolls were spent on landscapes and animals, and later, sports. But then came somewhat of a professional detour for the military. His service in the Marine Corps in the U.S. and abroad crystalized the reality that time is limited, that being a Marine wasn’t his calling, and that he’d rather explore with a camera than a uniform.
Now working with both large format film and conventional digital cameras, he is convinced of the power of the photograph to transport the viewer to an idyllic version of a place. His images of people and places are designed to share his desire to explore, and to show that beauty in the world isn’t always abstract or conceptual—sometimes there are literal views of the world shown through straight photography that evoke emotion. Often dominated by strong color, the images are meant to make you step into the scene and experience that place in that moment, sometimes to appreciate the beauty and sometimes to find out what comes next.
He's also extremely fortunate to have learned photography before phones became people’s dominant means for taking and consuming photographs. This upbringing cemented his belief that viewing a physical print is where the true power of the photograph is conveyed. He now works at every stage in the process with the end print in mind, making true photographic prints on light-sensitive silver halide photographic paper developed in traditional darkroom chemistry. The end result is finished photographs of uncompromising quality and maximum visual impact.
