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Chris Messner was born in Portland, Oregon in 1961. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Southern California, where he grew up and has resided ever since. Chris graduated from high school equipped with prestigious athletic scholarships. His athletic career was cut short by a pole-vaulting accident which left him temporarily paralyzed, and the direction of his life changed.

In 1982, he started a landscaping and tree care business , which he operated successfully for twenty-five years. He overcame his injuries and became an experienced mountain climber, scaling, among others, El Capitan, in Yosemite Valley, and the peaks of the Sawtooth Ridge on the border of Yosemite National Park. He married his wife, Anne, in 1990. They, their three children, and a “lazy cat,” live in a house not far from the one where Chris grew up. Chris is involved with his children's school district, has run for the school board, and is a member of his city's Architectural Design Review Board.

Chris’ enthusiasm for the outdoors, and his innate appreciation for natural beauty, developed over the years into an interest in fine art photography. In 1998, Paul Mills, former Director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, seeing potential in Chris’ work, encouraged him to take it seriously. Chris heeded his advice, and by 2002 had changed the direction of his life again, this time by choice, towards a career as a photographic artist. Since then he has exhibited extensively in Santa Barbara and surrounding areas, in group shows and one-man exhibits, and his work has met with broad critical approval.

In 2006, at the instigation of a colleague, Chris went on a photographic expedition to Japan. He returned with a newfound passion for travel, and an eagerness to apply his compositional eye to the sights of unfamiliar lands.

In 2007 and 2008, through his association with the Architectural Design Review Board, Chris joined two professional research delegations to Cuba, one focused on agricultural sustainability and development, the other on architecture and urban planning. He had personal conferences with the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, and the City of Havana’s architect and urban planner. Able to travel freely on his own, he explored Havana,Trinidad, and the Cuban countryside of Pinar del Rio, where farmers still use oxen to plow their fields. He also learned of Ernest  Hemingway's love for Cuba and, so, during his second he made tracing the author’s movements there a special objective. He visited Hemingway’s house on the outskirts of Havana, bars and cafes the author frequented, and the fishing village that inspired “The Old Man and the Sea.”

In 2009, Chris returned for a third time to Cuba.  His third trip  involved very extensive traveling around the whole island, including many remote parts not usually seen by visitors to Cuba. Throughout his explorations, Chris was permitted to photograph without restriction. He let his human sensibilities, rather than political ones, influence the pictures he took.

Photographs from Chris’ first two trips to Cuba were exhibited earlier this year. Chris Messner will be documenting his trips to Cuba in a soon to be released book! This book will feature many of Chris' photographs and will detail the many adventures he experienced while traveling in Cuba and will also document Cuba as it exists today before it opens up.  These experiences in Cuba led him to an unanticipated respect and appreciation for both the country and culture of Cuba.

Artist Statement
Everything is composition. "Seeing" a picture - a rectangle of space in which light, shadow, form, texture, and color come together in a way that speaks and stimulates thought and feeling and imagination. It reflects something larger. It is an act of discovery and an experience of recognition. That's composition. Its all around us, all the time.

Occupation:
Fine Art Photographer

Website URL:
www.cmpictures.com