He trained at Prahran College of Advanced Education 1974-6, where he was taught by Athol Shmith, John Cato[1] and Paul Cox, whom he remembers; "These 3 fabulous image makers helped inspire a generation of photographers that went on to make their mark in Australian society and overseas...The Photographic dept, in the bowels of the Arts Building was eternally underfunded, except in one area, "creativity".

I for one still remember many of the sayings Cato would weekly give out, like, "evolution breeds in adversity"[2]In his studies Chapman specialised in documentary, photojournalism & landscape photography.

All entail frequent long-distance travel across the island continent,[8] and the work of Jeff Carter is an inspiration to him in that regard; his advice to other photographers is to "explore Australia’s ‘inner circle’, away from the cities and coast.

In 2011 Chapman had a liver transplant,[10] during which he was almost blinded due to a viral infection, prompting him to hold a 2012 exhibition Nearly A Retrospective, a survey of four decades of his work.

[11][12] Chris Franklin recorded Andrew's recollection of events around the transplant and reflections on his lifelong calling in photography in Yellow[13] which won the international Lift-Off Global Network Best Short Documentary in 2019.