Breakfast in America
…this is my perspective, my life, and the inaccuracies, memory failings, fibs, exaggerations, and omissions are all mine.
Welcome to my personal blog. It’s mainly a photo journal with a few more wordy posts here and there. Besides posting my pictures as they are taken, when time allows and the whim takes me, I’m going back through my old pictures (over 30,000) and adding those too. Reviewing and captioning the huge backlog of photographs is proving to be a monumental task, and probably one I’ll never finish. As I’m adding pictures I’m writing up my notes in the present tense, with an occasional dab of hindsight. I am trying to keep it as accurate as I can, but this is my perspective, my life. It should go without saying that any inaccuracies, memory failings, fibs, exaggerations, and omissions are all mine.
Quick links: Gary Allman – About Me | Romance Scams | Contact Me | The Small Print
Gary Allman – About Me
I’m a Brit who unexpectedly ended up emigrating to the USA in 2008. Unexpectedly, as in, at the beginning of 2007 I had no intention of visiting the US on vacation, let alone living here, and now here I am in Springfield, Missouri, in the American Midwest with the love of my life, my wife Ginger.
I have two grown sons and a couple of grandchildren in the UK, three step-children here in the US, all of whom have fled the nest. I should add that we used to share our home with our four cats. Sadly, all of them have now crossed over the ‘Rainbow Bridge,’ with the ‘last man standing,’ Tubby, crossing over in October 2020.
How I ended up in the American Midwest
In 2006 my kids were away at university and I found myself with some undisturbed time on my hands. I bought my first digital camera for something to do and re-kindle my interest in photography. I also purchased an annual subscription to the Flickr photo service to back up all my pictures. Early in 2007, I started my first 365 Days project (a challenge to take a self-portrait every day for a year). The pictures I took prompted me to reflect on my life, and were, in part, the catalyst for a series of life changes and upheavals that culminated in my emigration from the UK to America. You can read a little bit more about all that here.
Photography
My earliest memory of photography is of being a child model for my uncle. He was a graphic designer and took lots of photographs. My interest in taking pictures began while we spent hours poring over his pictures, selecting suitable images for the brochures and corporate annual reports he produced for his clients.
Early in my career, while working as a computer programmer, I also worked weekends for a photo studio shooting weddings. Over time my work and home responsibilities increased, and I transitioned into more senior management roles. I worked in multimedia production, becoming involved with video and audio production, graphic design, and scriptwriting.
Then my career moved away from multimedia, into general software production management, principally in financial services. I spent more and more time managing and less time producing. Working at board level, I became more business-oriented, and my cameras, once always either in my briefcase or at my side, were left behind only to be brought out for work trips to Europe and India, vacations, and occasionally photographing weddings and events for friends and family.
A few years before my emigration, I swapped my briefcase for a rucksack, and while keeping my own business consultancy going, I ventured into the realm of university administration.
Between 2014 and 2023, in my alter ego (should that be altar ego?) role as Communications Director for the Episcopal Church in West Missouri, I went full circle, and I undertook a fair bit of event — documentary style — photography, graphic design, web development, and some stock image photography for promotions, and video production. I’ll admit I didn’t see that career move coming!
Romance Scams
Unfortunately, my photographs are being stolen by criminals who are then using them to create fake social media, games, and dating accounts. The criminals use my pictures to defraud women in romance scams (aka catfishing).
Are you a victim or just curious? You can read more about how my pictures have become involved in this organized criminal activity in this post, Romance Scams: Will The Real Gary Allman, Gary Brooks, Rick Brooks, Fabienne Duval, et al. Please Stand Up?
Contact Me
Want to contact me? Complete the form at this link: Contact Gary Allman
The Small Print (written large)
This is my website
Not only is this my website, but it is my personal website. The thoughts, ideas, complaints, obsessions, fibs, and silliness herein belong to me and do not reflect the position of, or in any way speak for any of my business partners, customers, employers, or employees; past, present, or future.
Be warned…
I don’t want to offend anyone; so be warned, a few of my posts and pictures include firearms and there are a small number of pictures that include artistic or casual nudity. You may find one or both of those subjects challenging. If you do, you’ll have to get over it. I enjoy shooting and I don’t understand why people get so hung up on nudity; we all have bodies after all.
What you see is pretty much what you get
At one point I found myself changing some of my posts, editing my words and pictures, effectively redacting my life because I was concerned about what people might say or think about me. That’s silly, I am not responsible for what you (or anyone else) thinks. That is your concern, not mine. If you don’t like what you see, what I have done, taken pictures of, or what I think and write about, that is fine. We are allowed to have different opinions and aesthetics. The world would be a very boring place if we didn’t.
The bottom line is, if you don’t like what you see or read here don’t bother telling me; just move on and find a corner of the Internet you are comfortable with.
The reality is that this is just one view on a very normal, albeit sometimes odd, life with all its inherent quirks and idiosyncrasies.
Product Links
Just to be clear, this is my personal website and not some money-making venture. However, with the increase in monetization and criminality of the internet, the cost of maintaining this site has risen exponentially — I now have to use premium security products to prevent the site from being hacked and protect visitors from becoming victims of malware. To put that into context, this website is attacked over 10,000 times a month, and that figure is climbing. Backup software (that works) is not free, and low-cost website hosting no longer offers reasonable response times. The result is that paying for security, backups, and hosting is no longer pocket change (for me anyway).
In short, when I include product links it’s because I think the item might be worth your further consideration, or the link provides additional information for the curious.
To offset some of the costs involved in keeping this site up and running I am including affiliate links on some of the products I recommend, and as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases (that last bit is Amazon’s appalling use of English that they insist I include). This doesn’t cost you anything, I just get a tiny percentage of any purchase you may make based on my recommendations. I am not given products to review, so my reviews and recommendations are based on items I’ve actually bought and used.
In short, when I include product links it’s because I think the item might be worth your further consideration, or the link provides additional information for the curious.
To state the obvious: I am not responsible for the content of other websites, and their content may change over time without my knowledge. Visit, read, or purchase from the websites I provide links to at your own discretion.
About Copyright
Unless it is specifically stated otherwise, all text and images are mine. If I’ve made a mistake somewhere and included an image or text from someone else and not acknowledged the source, please contact me and I’ll correct it. For more information see my notes on Copyright and image licensing
Privacy Policy
Privacy policy pages are all the rage, so let’s pretend this is a real grown-up website and include one. Read my privacy policy.