Every barber I have encountered in life and on this project has been a character. This guy was no exception. Character probably doesn’t do him justice. It could just come with the trade, or it runs in his family. Robert is the last in a family of barbers dating back 177 years. The shop he is in has been occupied by his family since 1964. And the walls in the back are covered in newspaper articles written on this family of barbers. Learned a lot of knowledge during my time in this shop. Some of it useful. Some of it useless. For instance, I learned that “the female bedbug has no vagina.” Robert is full of jokes and one liners that don’t seem to stop or have a filter. Exactly how a barbershop should be! At one point he said to me “your getting a lot more then you bargained for, aren’t ya?” My reply was no, this is exactly what I bargained for.

Overheard him speaking to a customer in his chair. The customer commented on liking to drink White Russians. His response: “White Russians are for girls. I drink scorpion bowls. They make me steal things I already own.” And later described him self as “the only guy I know who sniffs his own fart.”

All that aside, he has a really cool old shop. Like most other barbers, he collects stuff. And among other things, he collects foreign currency. In his collection there are bills from 188 different countries which were all brought in from customers who had visited that country. Pretty cool stuff. He’s also seems to be obsessed with Barak Obama. So much so that he named his dog Barak! A good pup that hangs out in the shop all day. Along with the pistol next to the barber chair, Barak keeps the shop safe.

TAGS: Barbershop Photography, Barbershop, Nashua Barbershop, Barber, Portrait of a Barber, Nashua, New Hampshire, Old School Barbershop, Classic Barbershop, Rob Hammer Photography