Rob is a professional photographer. For over thirty years he has been using a camera to capture the essence of the people and places he’s visited throughout the world. This usually means being there at the right time of day to capture the forms, the textures, and the rhythms that exist when the lighting and colors are at there best. Specific themes have been “people of the world”, “places of the world”, “images of nature”, and “New England coastal scenes”.
Rob grew up in Marblehead and has lived near the marshes of Essex and the beaches of Gloucester. Whether by sailboat, powerboat or kayak he has spent many hours exploring coastal areas and recording the scenes with his camera.
The artistic process begins with a color transparency that is scanned into the computer using a very high resolution scanner. Software allows Rob to have total control of the image in his “digital darkroom”. The final print is made using various ink jet printers. The advantage of this process over the conventional darkroom is that there is more artistic control and the color prints have a much longer archival life---up to 150 years before significant fading occurs.
Sometimes the final image is a straight photograph. Other times, when appropriate, Rob will use the photo as the initial “sketch” from which the final, more personal image is derived. As most artists do, he may go beyond the literal scene by, for example, combining several photo elements into a montage, or by subtracting elements from the scene, or by enhancing the scene in various ways--- in order to arrive at an artistic interpretation of the scene that is more lyrical, meaningful, or aesthetically pleasing. The end result is an image that elicits an emotion in him and hopefully in other people who view it.
People often ask, “how long will the image last before the colors start fading?”. The 18x24” images and the 10x20” panoramic images are produced with a special ink jet printer that uses the most fade-resistant archival inks available today. Based on independent tests, the combination of pigment-based inks and archival paper will resist color fading for up to 150 years as long as the image is not exposed to the direct rays of the sun or very high humidity. The 11x14 and smaller images use dye-based inks and are rated for approx. 20 years.