Films
KQED (2006)
Super-size it with photographer John Chiara, whose camera is so large that he has to tow it on a flatbed trailer. Original air date: May 2006.
Los Angeles Review of Books (2016)
Michael Kurcfeld at Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) reviews John Chiara’s photographs of New York City and the Hudson River Valley, commenting that Chiara’s works seem to capture “impressionistic moments of heightened reality, almost psychotropic in their distortion and intensity.” Produced by Michael Kurcfeld.
Pier 24 (2012)
John Chiara: Oakland Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge Presented in the Pier 24 Photography exhibition. May 23 - January 31, 2012 John Chiara photographs landscapes in a process that is part photography, part event, and part sculpture – an undertaking in apparatus and patience. Many times this process involves composing pictures from the inside of a large hand-built camera, that is mounted on a flatbed trailer, and produces large scale, one of a kind, positive exposures. Two works investigating the gateways of San Francisco, the Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge, were commissioned for Pier 24 Photography's recent exhibition,
Crown Point Press (2016)
Watch John Chiara in the Crown Point studio at work on his second photogravure project.
Richmond Art Center (2012)
Legendary enamel artist, June Schwarcz, and experimental photographer, John Chiara, discuss their collaborative exhibition at the RAC in Spring 2012.
The Urbanaut Podcast (2025)
In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with John Chiara, a visionary photographer who has revolutionized analog photography by crafting his own cameras, developing unique processes, and pushing the boundaries of artistic expression. About Our Guest: John Chiara After dedicating an extended period in 1995 to making contact prints from his 2-1/4" x 2-1/4" negatives, John Chiara discovered that too much information was lost in the darkroom enlargement process. Over the next six years, he developed his own equipment and processes to create first-generation unique photographs without using film.
John Chiara - Paris Photo (2016)
Born in 1971 in San Francisco, California. Lives and works in San Francisco, California.
After spending an extended period of 1995 dedicated to making contact prints from his 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" and 4" X 5" negatives, Chiara decided too much information was lost in the darkroom enlargement process. Over the next 6 years Chiara developed his own equipment and processes to make 1st generation unique photographs (no film).
John Chiara developed a process that is part photography part sculpture and part event - an undertaking in apparatus and patience.He creates one-of-a-kind photographs in a variety of hand-built cameras, the largest of which is a 50” x 80” field camera transported by the artist on a flatbed trailer. Once a location is selected, he situates and then physically enters the camera, maneuvering in near total darkness positive color photographic paper on the camera’s back wall. Throughout the exposure, his instinctual control limits the light entering the lens, using his hands to burn and dodge the image. These large-scale photographs are developed by hand in a spinning drum process that agitates the chemistry over the photographic paper that lines the interior of the drum – a process that often leaves behind traces on the resulting image.
Chiara’s photographs are strongly perceptual, eliciting a visceral response, yet are rendered in soft hues that exude a strong sense of the viscosity of material and the ephemerality of presence.