GARY BALLARD

Hello good people of the world, and welcome to my professional website: GBALLARD NETWORK gballard.net

JUNE 2025 UPDATE:

I was just able to buy my .com -- gballard.com -- and saw it as a Sign to update My Story with a few more pages....

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 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.

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 life (because understanding begins the healing, and moving on).

I personally did all the creative and technical work on the gballard Web site (and 98% of all the work on my other websites) -- everything -- 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 and site hosting ADMIN.

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 WHEN I WAS YOUNG:

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

YOUNG GARY pictured building his experience in motion picture, photojournalism, multimedia, mass communications.

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.

Out in the world -- I started meeting really smart people for the first time outside of my small town neighborhood.

My advice to anyone entering a competitive worldly system:

Keep a clean record -- screwing up socially, legally, financially takes your options away and leaves other people to decide where you fit (or don't fit) in their organization.

If your friends are not talking about ideas and goals -- and acting on them -- you need to find new friends.

I recall a couple older men (probably early-mid twenties) talking about professional photography -- right there I knew -- and went to the local navy recruiter and signed up with my school guarantee.

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

PRE COMPUTER -- this is my desk in the CCG PHOJO department. I spent much of my free time 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 Specialist

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