About Chantal James

Chantal James (b.1977, Toronto Canada) is a photographer and researcher based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work explores shared human experiences and the visual language of emotion, seeking the essence of things through an improvisational method akin to musical syncopation. Intuitive and impulsive, she pursues forms of expression that verge on the supernatural, revealing “holy moments” of alignment.

Chantal is captivated by polychronic cultures, where time is fluid and the lines between public and private life blur. In these places, social life unfolds like a sacred dance of gestures, each movement telling a story. Comicerative and congenial to whatever the subject has done, she seeks the exquisite within the mundane and focuses on inward experiences that reveal profound truths.

For over 30 years, photography has profoundly shaped her worldview. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, she began photographing street life in Brooklyn and Harlem in the mid-1990s. Seeking the “warm culture of the south,” she traveled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean, ultimately settling in Rio de Janeiro in 2005. In 2000, while living in Havana, Cuba, she founded La Rampa Magazine, a large-format print publication dedicated to photography, design, and non-traditional storytelling, with issues produced in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and recently Portugal.

Over the past 20 years, Chantal has exhibited her work at international festivals including Miami Art Basel, The Smithsonian FolkLife Festival, and Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival. She contributes to VOGUE, writing about politics and culture in South America and the Caribbean. In 2025, she is launching La Rampa Creative Retreats to share her passion for travel, photography, and Brazil.