We were lucky to catch up with Chip Freund recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chip, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The story of Blue Glacier Then & Now: A Personal Photographic Story of Climate Change (https://www.blueglacierthenandnow.org/) began 40 years ago. It was July 1982. I had just spent the past week and a half making my way across the country via Greyhound bus. A couple of weeks shy of my 18th birthday I found myself in the most spectacular and alien world, the alpine glaciers of Olympic National Park in Washington State.

I was in the park as a member of a Student Conservation Association backcountry trail crew. Our assignment for the next five weeks was a mix of trail maintenance and new trail cutting. Each day took us either back down the mountain into the Hoh Rainforest, or up to the lateral moraine of the Blue Glacier.

I began taking photographs around age ten and had become an avid photographer by the time I reached the Olympics. So of course, my trusty Nikon FM and 50mm lens plus a dozen rolls of film came along on the trek. At the time I was enjoying capturing the singular beauty of the area and the day-to-day life of a crew of teenage trail hands. Little did I know that I was documenting a disappearing natural wonder.

The summer I spent working alongside the Blue Glacier left an indelible mark on my heart, mind, and soul. I had longed to return to that special place before it changed forever, and the fortieth anniversary of my time on the mountain provided the perfect opportunity to make the trek.

So, in July of 2022 I ascended the Hoh River Trail once more. This time joined by two of my adult children. Our mission over the following five days was to recreate images taken in the summer of 1982. The ultimate goal was to create a conservation photography exhibition displaying the image pairs side by side to show the massive amount of glacier ice loss that had occurred in the past four decades.

A National Park Service report estimated that Olympic National Park had lost 34% of its glacial mass between 1982 and 2009. I estimate that in 2022 the ice mass loss was approaching 50% from what I had seen 40 years earlier. At the current rate, the last glacier in the park could be completely gone by 2050. Source: National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/glaciers.htm)

In the months following our return to Raleigh the exhibition began to come together. I processed and printed a collection of images, printing them on large, 3’ x 4’ canvases. The initial showing of the exhibition was at the Cary Arts Center main gallery for six weeks the following summer.

The topic of climate change has become highly politicized. Misinformation and tribal politics have created an environment where civil fact-based discourse no longer appears possible. It is my hope that by sharing my story and images that I can open a discussion with those around me. Moving past lectures, statistics, and rhetoric to have meaningful dialog about our world and the effects we have upon it.

I am grateful for the fine documentary film of this project created by my son, Will Freund. It is currently in review by several film festivals across the country. A trailer is available at https://willthefourth.com/blue-glacier-then-now/

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been capturing images for more than four decades. I first picked up a camera around age ten, a Kodak 110 Instamatic. I quickly graduated to 35mm with a Kodak Pony handed down from my parents. But it wasn’t until my grandfather, Rev. Warren Darnell, took me on what he called a “photo safari”, that the passion was truly ignited. A photo safari is a great name for a walk about with the purpose of looking for images to make. It can be in your backyard, down the street, or on the other side of the world. By the time I made it to junior high school, I was shooting for the school yearbook.

Throughout my life photography has been an on again off again hobby. My subjects were primarily nature and landscapes. My first career was in the telecom and hosting industries as a product marketing executive. While B2B marketing certainly has its creative elements, in 2012 I found myself feeling a real void in my life. I needed a creative outlet. Throughout my life I have been fortunate to have opportunities arise often when I needed them most. In the spring of 2012, I became aware of a unique photography workshop being offered by the Chatham Conservation Partnership and Triangle Land Conservancy. The workshop was led by David Blevins, a well-known photographer and author here in North Carolina. The workshop required that each participant create two images that showed the natural history or human interaction with the environment within Chatham County North Carolina. The resulting images formed a traveling exhibit, “Through Their Lens: Chatham County”, which toured the area for a year. The prints were then auctioned off with the proceeds benefiting Triangle Land Conservancy.

One of my images from the exhibit, “Dawn on Rocky River”, became the motivation to begin my encore career as a photographic artist. I began to devote time to deepening my skills and knowledge of photography through regular practice and learning from YouTube photographers including Ted Forbes, Robert Rodriguez Jr., and Thomas Heaton. By the fall of 2017, I felt I had created a large enough body of work to begin my encore career part-time and Chip Freund Photography was born.

Each year since becoming a professional photographic artist my style and artistic voice have developed. I use landscape and nature photography to engage viewers with the natural world through images. I find my greatest inspiration in places where water meets land, the water’s edge. Not only are these places rich in biodiversity, they often are some of the most beautiful. My work frequently exhibits minimalism in composition and is either monochrome or uses highly a desaturated color palette. The majority of my work is sold as limited-edition prints of short runs of only 25 copies. I produce each print myself using a large-format printer designed specifically for photography and fine art printing. I offer traditional matted prints on a fine art quality matte paper and larger gallery wrapped canvas prints.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When I launched Chip Freund Photography in 2017, I planned to run it as a side hustle for five or six years, until all of my kids had graduated college. At the end of 2019 my employer, in an effort to improve profitability ahead of its IPO, laid off most of the marketing department. The cuts were far deeper than I expected, and my position was eliminated. As we rolled into the new year the global pandemic began to take hold of the world. Despite a successful career and large professional network, the combination of the pandemic and being over 50 my job search was clearly proving to be fruitless. After months of searching and networking I decided that the universe was telling me it was time to take the plunge and make art my full-time career. With the support of my family and some financial restructuring I set out to build a career and business around my artwork.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most frequent reward of my art career has been the people I have met and the relationships we have developed. I am grateful for all of the friendships and encouragement the arts community has given me. By far though the greatest gift is when a client tells me how my work hanging on their wall brings them joy each day. I make my art first for myself. Creating images that I love. But recently when a client told me that he starts each day with a smile and a sense of calm because he sits before my print each morning as he sips his coffee, I was truly grateful to have my work be such an integral part of another person’s life, I could not ask for a greater reward.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chipfreundphoto.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chipfreundphoto
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chipfreundphoto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chipfreundphoto/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chipfreundphoto
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@chipfreundphoto
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/chip-freund-photography-raleigh
• Other: https://www.blueglacierthenandnow.org/

Image Credits
All images copyrighted, Chip Freund Photography, all rights reserved. The attached images are provided to CanvasRebel Magazine for editorial use at no cost.