Gary Chambers grew up in Louisville. Upon graduation from the University of Kentucky in 1981, he was sent to navigator training to fly the RF-4C Phantom II. In 1986, Gary graduated from the USAF Fighter Weapons School. The demise of the Phantom II in ANG service prompted a transfer to the C-130 Hercules in the Michigan ANG, participating in airlift operations in the Balkans, Central and South America, equatorial Africa, and Southern Watch in the Persian Gulf. After Sept. 11, 2001, Lt. Col. Chambers was activated in the Air Force Reserves and deployed to support airlift operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired from the reserves in March 2008 after over 30 years and 6,000+ flight hours.

Interest in photography began as a way of gathering documentation for scale model building. The hobby blossomed with training as an imagery interpreter in the Air Guard and a cartography and remote sensing degree. The first commercial flying job was taking aerial photos for State Aerial Farm Statistics and later flying a North America Navion for mapping. Gary is rated to fly the Canadair Regional Jet and the Boeing 757. He is a volunteer with Civil Air Patrol and Commemorative Air Force.