Chantal Simone (1977)  is a Canadian-Brazilian photographer and editor based in Rio de Janeiro. Her work investigates modes of being and ways of seeing through an improvisational, rhythm-driven approach shaped by intuition and emotional presence.

Rooted in the belief that storytelling reveals deeper truths than fact alone, she photographs through the lens of the fictionally real—where gesture, mood, and atmosphere become symbols of inner life. She is drawn to evocative places and people who stand slightly outside the ordinary, capturing them in moments that feel both observed and imagined.

A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Chantal began photographing street life in Brooklyn and Harlem in the mid-1990s before traveling widely through Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2005, she made Rio de Janeiro her home. While living in Havana in 2000, she founded La Rampa Magazine—a large-format publication exploring photography and design as languages of place, culture, and creative identity, with editions produced in Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, and Portugal.

For over three decades, photography has been her language and philosophy: a way to witness, participate, and transform. Through editorial projects, cross-cultural collaborations, and immersive retreats in Brazil, she explores narrative as a form of understanding—where documentary meets myth, and the camera becomes a bridge between seen and felt worlds.

Her retreats—part photographic journey, part mindful escape—guide participants in defining their visual language, blending in-the-field experimentation with reflective storytelling and an emphasis on depth, perspective, and intention.