About Breakfast in America & Gary Allman

Breakfast in America – The original website header image. Copyright © 2007 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

Breakfast in America

This is my perspective and 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. When time allows and the whim takes me, I’m going back through my old unpublished pictures and posting them. I’m writing up my notes in the present tense, with the occasional dab of hindsight. I am keeping it as accurate as I can, but this is my perspective and my life, and the 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

Gary on the Pilot Trail, Hercules Glades Wilderness – December 2019 Copyright © 2019 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

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 ever visiting the US, and now here I am living in Springfield, Missouri, in the American Midwest, with the love of my life, my wife Ginger.

I have two grown children and three grandchildren in the UK, and three grown stepchildren and a couple of grandcats here in the US.

I ought to add that we used to share our home with four cats. All of them have now crossed over the ‘Rainbow Bridge.’ The ‘last man standing,’ Tubby, crossed over in October 2020. Nowadays we perform occasional cat-sitting duties for our grandcats.

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 a digital camera to re-kindle my interest in photography. 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 that culminated in my getting separated in June 2007 and divorced in 2008. I subsequently emigrated from the UK to America in November 2008. You can read a little bit more about all that here.

Photography & Work

One of my first memories of photography is being a child model for my uncle. He was a graphic designer and photographer. My interest in photography began in earnest, years later, 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 managed multimedia production teams involved with video and audio production, graphic design, scriptwriting, and software development.

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. Now working at board level, I became more business-oriented, and my cameras were left behind only to be brought out for overseas business trips, vacations, and occasionally photographing weddings and events for friends and family.

Between 2014 and 2023, after moving to the USA, in my alter ego (should that be altar ego?) role as Communications Director for the Diocese of West Missouri, I went full circle, and I undertook a lot 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!

And now, having retired, I’m taking various scraps of pensions, and when I’m not tinkering with stuff, or out backpacking, I’m working with Ginger for the family business.

Romance Scams

Unfortunately, my photographs are being stolen by criminals who are using them to create fake accounts on social media, game, and dating websites (among others). The criminals are using 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 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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