Peter B Chase — Fine Art Photographer and Poet

Fine art photography by Peter B Chase — landscape, travel, and documentary surrealism from around the world. Galleries, poetry, and visual storytelling.

Why — Artist Statement by Peter B Chase

So long ago that dreams and memories have become difficult to distinguish, my love of photography began in a darkened room pierced by a beam of light, my father at the helm of the Kodak carousel slide projector. Initiation into that sacred suburban rite — the slide show — planted a tiny, tenacious idea that survives even now after thousands of revisions:

Photography can bring back wonder, knowledge, and emotion from journeys to any frontier.

Many years later I carried mother's beautiful Leica M3 around campus, and reveled in the analog alchemy of my images slowly materializing at the bottom of trays filled with liquid developer. I still believed in those frontier journeys. And I still hoped to return with a roll of Pan X film capturing some gnosis unavailable in ordinary life. University, art school, and many pilgrimages — physical and chemical — followed.

My journeys are farther afield now, and this site is my message in a bottle.

Why Photography — Peter B Chase

My journeys are farther afield now, and this site is my message in a bottle. Unfurl a few of the notes inside. — pc, 2026

But Is It Art? — Photography and Poetry by Peter B Chase

Peter B. Chase's poems have a fondness for life's physical and emotional flotsam: cardboard boxes, old sweaters, an elevator, a baby grand piano, a spinning wheel, a skull thrown from a balcony. Chase trusts the reader and almost never announces the significance of these objects, but lets the metaphorical weight accumulate as the highly personal verse unfolds.

His photographer's instinct — to put "little brackets" around things — is also his poet's instinct. The images are likewise highly eclectic — from exotic landscapes to surreal macro worlds to urban street photography. They are all made with the same restless instinct — to reveal what is evocative — whether the subject is a galaxy from a mountain top, or a naked mannequin in an alley.

Initially it all seems a bit of a dog's breakfast, but when you look a little deeper surprises surface: the stillness of a Shan shui painting, the unflinching directness of a Diane Arbus, or even, in his very best landscapes, the sweep of a Sebastião Salgado — all refracted through the vision of a guy who's been at it since the 1970s, and still hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up.

This melding of Light and Language — poetry and photography — does not come with a familiar formula. We cannot say the images illustrate the poetry or that the poetry is an explanation of the pictures. Seemingly random juxtapositions create unresolved tension that entices the viewer to envision the connection between the two — the results can be singular.

Mr. Chase calls it "Documentary Surrealism," which is either an authentic aesthetic philosophy or a very clever way of saying "I make it up as I go." Possibly both? Mr. Chase studied art and photography properly, at actual universities, so there's concept and technique under the chaos. But his real education has been in the decades since, traveling the world second guessing his choice to carry a heavy pack with camera gear. He now lives in Virginia with his remarkable girlfriend and a zero-pet policy. So is it art? Pity, but you'll have to decide. Peter's just going to keep making the pictures either way.

Photography and Poetry Galleries

Sotto Voce — Quiet World Landscapes

Quiet, powerful landscapes from around the world — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

Whiskey — poem by Peter B Chase

The bitter crust of rock ground to dust under my boots as I finally emerged into the wind. Alone shivering I pulled the coarse wool sweater from the orange rucksack over my head smelling whiskey and campfire smoke and a hundred other trips without you. You were older, you should have helped me find trails through the canyon. But I had to search for you at the back of the old cemetery my grief washing the dust off your stone.

Continental Drift — International Travel Photography

Impressionistic world travel photography — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

The Little Man — poem by Peter B Chase

You said you wished you wouldn't think the same thoughts over and over and I agreed. I too longed to silence the homunculus trapped inside my head looking disapprovingly out through the sockets of my skull. I swept those twin beams over and over but they were not cameras, not portals — just hopelessly tiny filters through which not even Plato's shadows could pass.

Unintelligent Design — Surreal and Absurd Photography

Humorous and absurd images — documentary surrealism by Peter B Chase

A Good Plan — poem by Peter B Chase

I told you I wanted Bach's Brandenburg number 3 played at my funeral. I still think that's a good plan. Better than a eulogy, full of lies.

Desert Solitaire — American Southwest Landscape Photography

Secret southwestern American landscapes — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

The Well — poem by Peter B Chase

Brilliantly bleached. Snickering two-inch canines, a mohawk of boar bristle. A find. We delighted and stashed him in my pack. Picking our way down the arroyo sweat rolling into squinting eyes stepping over forgotten twists of rusted barbed wire. The desiccated outpost just a tumble of adobe bricks a few flies buzzing around the crumbling well. You held my legs while I leaned over the edge the stone dropped two seconds before the miraculous tiny splash. I sketched that skull many decades on in a desultory still life or two. I posted you its image but you registered nothing. Not the days on the road, not the week in the desert. Some time later I was drunk and threw that skull off my balcony into the pond.

Elegy — European Fine Art Photography

Poetic images of a fading Europe — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

In Between — poem by Peter B Chase

It was in the old hotel. The high whitewashed walls and tall windows with the wet peeling sills. Iron rails clanking. Toy trains far below, horns unrelenting. Mist choking the hills. The small crusty loaf torn in half the crumbs scattered carelessly across the stained table. I heard the low rustling, the harried pacing, through the plaster walls. I stopped, listened, fascinated, embarrassed. The voice was slow rising, slowly pleading, slowly heaving. Bursting through he cried "Can't you just choose kindness first." A drop of rain traced a long slow path down the pane.

Fin del Mundo — Patagonia Landscape Photography

Dramatic Patagonian moments — fine art travel photography by Peter B Chase

Taking Pictures — poem by Peter B Chase

It has been said my stock in trade is pulling everything out of context. But I continue putting little brackets around everything. There is truth to this. Add up all those shutter instants. The retrospective of my life is one hand of seconds. I wrote your eulogy, in your basement. Drinking your favorite — martini. Hunched over the curling picture album words were useless trinkets.

Still Lives — Found Object Fine Art Photography

Random perfection — found still life images by Peter B Chase

Ark of the Rootless — poem by Peter B Chase

Pleading Quieting Thanking Breathing. It was more than a petition, it was less, begun when I was a fool, an equal among my peers. My spine revealed the thin cheap mat on the cool hard floor, the enormous old house an ark of the rootless. Insufferably seductive the voice intoned climb up through chakras one by one. Seems my kundalini just smiled, the serpent's eye remained on Judy in her lovely leotard. Quieting breathing, third eye closed, pleading and thanking, soul unrevealed. Judy drifted away from me, she went to pray and speak in tongues kneeling in places I couldn't follow.

Dreams and Memories — Photolyric Photography and Poetry

Intimate and evocative photographic memories — photo-poetry by Peter B Chase

Boxes — poem by Peter B Chase

I carried cardboard boxes filled with books, pots and pans, and clothes, up the stairs to my new apartment. I counted each of the twenty four steps. One for each year it had been, since I last lived alone.

Elation — Joyful Fine Art Landscape Photography

Joyful motion landscapes — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

My Night — poem by Peter B Chase

It was warm inside the old chapel. The stained glass is so grey at night I said. Don't you see! you said, the windows are so beautiful from the outside.

Adagio — Mediterranean Travel Photography

Evocative Mediterranean travel photography — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

Breathing — poem by Peter B Chase

I woke this morning and listened to you breathing. In the stillness below the threshold of our consciousness. The rhythm of your breath was the cadence of grace. A sparrow pierced the darkness with its tiny song, an act of faith that the sun would rise again, as my faith that you would still love me through another day.

Sierra — California and Sierra Nevada Landscape Photography

Sierra Nevada and California landscapes — fine art photography by Peter B Chase

The Arb — poem by Peter B Chase

Giggling under the pine trees in the Arboretum. The joint revolved between us. Dave turned his bloodshot eyes to the sky and I heard the small plane far overhead. Fred exhaled a huge cloud looking up and exclaimed "I hope they don't have a marijuana detector!" We all collapsed in spasms of laughter and coughing. Our careless and unlikely futures looking down on us.

Tiny Miracles — Macro Fine Art Photography

Exquisite macro photography — fine art detail photography by Peter B Chase

Dirty Hands — poem by Peter B Chase

Timmy lived in a house with an elevator, a baby grand piano and a spinning wheel. His family spent summers in Maine, sailing, and what else I have no idea. I have a picture somewhere of us, each planted in high chairs, in the kitchen. Timmy never took lessons but he would sometimes play the piano, head cocked, mouth slightly open. Timmy didn't go to my regular school, we didn't care or understand why. We built kingdoms under the shrubs and collected insects, stones and treasures with our dirty little hands. Timmy had a strict bedtime, I asked him once why he didn't protest, but he couldn't understand the question. The neighbor girl revealed her mysterious treasure to us behind the garage, of course we honored the pact and did the same. I slowly lost that invisible thread that bound us building the defensive kingdoms of boys and girls, embarrassment and competition, that Timmy couldn't understand.