More than three decades behind a newspaper camera and a mass shooting that nearly ended his life have shaped the body of work Paul W. Gillespie will finally hang on gallery walls under one roof. The longtime Capital Gazette photojournalist opens a solo exhibition titled “Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It? People, Places, and Passing Moments” at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park, running from September 10 through November 8, 2026, in the Patricia Barland Gallery.
The show brings together work made primarily over the past several years, spanning street portraits, images of musicians, photographs of the moon, and scenes of everyday people and places captured across Anne Arundel County and beyond, according to Eye On Annapolis. Gillespie has spent more than three decades as a newspaper photojournalist, and the outlet reports he described photography as more of a way of life than a job. The exhibition also includes images from his Journalists Matter: Faces of the Capital Gazette project, a series that connects directly to one of the darkest days in American journalism.
Surviving the Newsroom Attack
On June 28, 2018, Gillespie survived a mass shooting inside the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis by hiding beneath a colleague's desk before sprinting out through shattered glass as the gunman fired in his direction, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. He later reported feeling the air from a shot pass by his head as he ran to a nearby bank to call emergency services. The attack killed five Capital Gazette staff members: editors Gerald Fischman and Rob Hiaasen, reporter John McNamara, community correspondent Wendi Winters, and sales assistant Rebecca Smith, an event The Washington Post has called one of the deadliest targeted killings of journalists in modern American history.
Gunman Jarrod Ramos was sentenced in September 2021 to five consecutive life sentences without parole for the murders, plus a sixth life sentence specifically for the attempted murder of Gillespie, after a jury rejected his insanity defense and found him criminally responsible. State prosecutors confirmed in November 2021 that Ramos declined to appeal those sentences, per WJZ CBS Baltimore, bringing full finality to the criminal case. Separately, families of the victims and surviving journalists finalized a settlement agreement in January 2023 that resolved their civil wrongful death and negligence lawsuits, the press freedom tracker's reporting notes.
Turning Trauma Into Portraits
In the months after the shooting, Gillespie created the Journalists Matter: Faces of the Capital Gazette portrait series using an improvised studio in his home basement as a personal therapeutic outlet, according to Baltimore Magazine. He conducted extended conversation sessions with each survivor and each victim's family member while capturing their portraits, and the project was first shown publicly in Annapolis in October 2018, per Sentinel Colorado's reporting.
The series includes symbolic images such as reporter Pat Furgurson holding a pen beside a hat reading “Not the Enemy” and Andrea Chamblee wearing the press credentials of her slain husband, John McNamara, as Sentinel Colorado has described. In April 2019, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded the Capital Gazette newsroom a Special Citation along with a $100,000 bequest for its courageous coverage and community service following the tragedy — the first Special Citation the board had given in journalism in 23 years.
A Milestone Year for the Host Venue
The Chesapeake Arts Center at 194 Hammonds Lane sits on a 58,000-square-foot campus that is celebrating its 25th anniversary throughout 2026 and typically draws more than 50,000 visitors a year to Northern Anne Arundel County. Hoodline reported on the venue's silver anniversary gala earlier this month, underscoring the center's role as a cultural anchor in the region during the same year it hosts Gillespie's retrospective.
The opening reception is scheduled for Thursday, September 10, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Patricia Barland Gallery, and it is free to attend, open to all ages, and will include complimentary drinks and light refreshments. Gillespie is also available for an artist talk or panel discussion connected to the exhibition. More information is available at pwgphoto.com.
