Paul Chambers is a photographer based in Guernsey.
Born in 1970, Paul studied Fine Art at Cheltenham College of Art in the late 80’s and early 90’s where, on finding he was colour blind, left the oil and terps of the painting studio for the chemicals and red light of the photographic dark room.
A curious traveller and former doctor of trees during the 90’s; Paul found himself leading an Ecumenical community in Guernsey for 10 years in the 00’s (where he attained a Master’s degree in Theology) before moving on to working in the Criminal Justice System for another decade developing Restorative Practices.
Paul explored documentary photography in the 00's with Christian Aid and Amos Trust in Ghana, Tanzania and Palestine. His photography is a wide-ranging form of fine art, focusing his work on shedding light on a greater social issues.
In 2016, a chain of events, culminating in a time in rehab for alcoholism, led his interest back to photography. Very quickly Paul became fascinated by Wetplate Collodion photography, a traditional process from the 1850’s, each individual tintype plate is handcrafted from scratch, producing a single, unique portrait rendered in pure, real silver.
Paul has been fortunate enough to have been taught and mentored by the collodion magician Dave Shrimpton, himself recognised as one of the 29 wet plate photographers in the world you need to know.
He is one of a small community of photographers practicing this ancient photographic process. Paul uses this wet-collodion technique like an old time carnival photographic process imbued in chiaroscuro, where this chemical treatment of light and shade deliver a vision of the world marked by the fragility of our own darkness and light existing side by side.
His work was presented in the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny in France during the summer of 2023. A collaboration with Art for Guernsey and in partnership with the Guernsey Museums and the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny.
During 2024 Paul exhibited with ArtHouse Jersey and Art for Guernsey, who hosted their first partnership exhibition, The Channel Islands Contemporary Art Show. This diverse exhibition featured 19 carefully selected artists and was drawn from an open call to Channel Islands and international artists. It was produced & curated by ArtHouse Jersey and Art for Guernsey, in association with Les Champs Libres in Rennes.
Paul also exhibited at the Greenbelt Arts Festival, his spiritual home, during the bank holiday weekend in August 2024. At the 2023 Festival, Paul decided to put down his digital cameras and use the centuries-old wet plate collodion technique to take 50 tintype portraits of 50 beautiful humans to represent 50 years of Greenbelt. Paul Northrop, the Festivals Creative Director said “the result is a gallery of portraits unlike any other the festival has seen before”.
The Musée des Impressionnismes describes his work as, "to be among the realm of alchemy, creating views, (both portrait and landscape), imbued with a mysterious beauty.”