GARY BALLARD

Hello good people of the world, and welcome to my creative network: gballard.net (est. 2002)

JULY 2026:

Just put a boatload of time in my sites the past year revising thousands of pages, upgrading hundreds of photos to higher resolutions....

WHAT A RIDE I HAD with my camera and the World Wide Web:

I am extremely grateful to have worked alongside so many good people -- people I liked and respected.

We literally built some "castles in the air" (as H.D. Thoreau put it way back in the 1800s).

I LIVED MY DREAM CAREER into my 50s -- not everyone can say that. I never had to lie to, cheat or mislead people or be a butthole to make my money. I think owning one's word is a true luxury in life for an honorable person.

Now I'm 70 -- I've just published a few more websites to impart some wisdom of my years -- what I've learned from my life experiences:

SNAKE-IN-THE-GRASS.com www.snake-in-the-grass.com
When you find yourself with bad people (and tips how to spot them).

I-GOT-SCREWED.org www.i-got-screwed.org
Top 10 lessons in business (because understanding how shady people operate can help protect you and your family).

At 61 years, right before I published my protest website in 2016... (cry, cry, cry)

At 51 years, the pinnacle of my photography career in 2007... the next 18 years I worked mostly on developing American Indian educational websites until 2026 when that funding ran out.

INFO ABOUT THE GBALLARD WEBSITES:

I personally did all the creative and technical work on the gballard websites (and 98% of all the work on my contract sites) -- everything.

No AI (artificial intelligence) was ever used in my production!

I personally do all my own still and video photography, editing, writing, graphic designing and production for print, DVD (including Blu-ray), Web page layouts, tech and site hosting ADMIN.

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MY LAST GREAT CREATIVE PROJECT:

MR HIP-HOP is my last great multimedia project 2022 where I spent over a year producing my monster four-hour Blu-ray movie project during COVID.

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A FEW PICS Starting Out:

I don't recall taking any photos before joining the navy in 1978, though my mother always had stacks of "National Geographic" and "Life" magazines in the house planting the seeds....

RED BRISTOL, born 1899, takes a self portrait with Gary Ballard in the octogenarian's home in Syracuse, New York, c.1982. Red's personality profile was one of my student projects at Syracuse University (SU) The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication.

The navy was very, very good to me.

I enlisted with an A school photo guarantee with no prior photography or college experience -- and somehow got the advanced photojournalism and motion picture "C" schools right out of basic -- including the elite Combat Camera Group (CCG) duty assignment as an Airman Apprentice (E-2) right out of navy boot camp.

Getting class C schools and CCG assignment were each rare accomplishments for an E-2 at the time -- I got real lucky.

PACIFIC FLEET COMBAT CAMERA GROUP is a prestigious audio-visual command that usually hand picked their staff from seasoned operators -- but there I was -- on my dream career path traveling the Far East and flying in military helicopters and TA-7 Corsair II attack jet aircraft.

The military uses the T or trainer version of the A-7 for aerial photography because it has the second seat for training fighter pilots.

WHY PHOTOGRAPHY?

I recall a couple older guys outside my group (early twenties) talking about professional photography -- I was greatly intrigued and started looking into programs ... I ended up at the local navy recruiter and signed up with my school guarantee.

The recruiter originally told me NO WAY -- "photography is closed," they said matter of factly -- and I walked out. They called me a few days later and I had to wait nine months, but I got the rating I wanted.

PRE COMPUTER -- this is my desk in the CCG PHOJO department in San Diego. I spent much of my free time taking BEACH PHOTOS, wave surfing and skateboarding the Pacific beach boardwalks during this period.

My mentor at CCG encouraged me to submit a portfolio for the competitive Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University, in New York. I did, was accepted, and spent nearly a year in New York at SU getting a free college education.

Syracuse definitely left its mark on me for developing my writing discipline -- I never wrote (or read much of) anything until I entered naval photojournalism.

Note: In the early '80s there were no computers in sight, no e-mail, iPhones, Internet, Google, WIKI, digital cameras, Photoshop, grammar-spell checks, AI creative (or Garmin GPS) -- people still smoked cigarettes freely in bars and in airplanes back then ... imagine that!

HOW TO CONTACT & HIRE GARY BALLARD:

CONTACT INFO:
PORTFOLIOS:
RESUME:
EQUIPMENT List: I I
RATES: I charge professional commercial rates for specialized technical and creative services and top-quality, original work -- please contact me for a quote and availability.

Sincerely yours,

GARY G. BALLARD
Multi-Media Photojournalist -- Mass Communications

WEBMASTER
2 BILLION HITS (2025):

www.gballard.net www.gballard.com (GBALLARD personal sites)
www.kumeyaay.info (hobby KUMEYAAY site)

CALIFORNIA INDIAN EDUCATION CALIE NETWORK:
www.calie.org aka www.californiaindianeducation.org (CALIE archived site)
www.americanindianreporter.com aka www.aireporter.org (AIR archived site)
www.apapas.com | www.ahmium.com (defunct contract sites)
www.gehotshots.org (GOLDEN EAGLES HOTSHOTS archived site)
www.sycuanfire.com (SYCUAN FIRE archived site)
www.howka.com (HOWKA archived site)
www.sycuanbandofthieves.com (cry, cry, cry)

Professional Facebook activity:
FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEFS
CALIFORNIA INDIAN EDUCATION
NATIVE AMERICAN VETERANS
KUMEYAAY INFORMATION VILLAGE
MISSION INDIAN FEDERATION
COLOR MANAGEMENT THEORY
INDIAN CASINOS
WEB COLOR
TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY
BAJA TRIBES
FAMOUS INDIAN ATHLETES