About Chantal James

Chantal James (b.1977, Toronto Canada) is a photographer and researcher based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work explores the human experience and the visual language of emotion — the relationship between the outer world and the inner world of the individual. She is drawn to mystical spaces where the boundaries between public and domestic life are undefined and social life reveals itself. Chantal’s process is intuitive and focuses on an immersive point of view; the experience of making the image becomes part of its fabric.

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For the last 30 years photography has profoundly shaped her life and how she sees the world. 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 left NY to travel and photograph extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean eventually settling in Rio de Janeiro in 2005.

While living in Havana, Cuba in 2000, she founded La Rampa Magazine; a large format print publication dedicated to photography, design and non-traditional storytelling. Applying an ethnographic approach to visual narratives, the project was a means to go deeper into themes and places where there was affinity. Issues were produced in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and recently Portugal.

Over the last 20 years Chantal has exhibited her work at international festivals including Miami Art Basel, The Smithsonian FolkLife Festival and Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival in Toronto Canada.

Chantal is a contributor to VOGUE where she writes about politics and culture in South America and the Caribbean.

In 2025 she will launch La Rampa Creative Retreats as a means to share her experience and passion for travel and photography.