Cardiff by the Sea

San Diego Photography - Cardiff by the Sea

Like this image as much as any I’ve made over the past couple months. It goes into the category of not being sure what I’ll do with it yet, but that doesn’t matter. The subject or label that has to be applied is of no importance. Making photographs is. And just because they might not fit into a category, what you’re known for, or what you’re hired for should never stop someone from making an image. If it brings you happiness then make the image and figure out the rest later. Shoot. Share. Repeat.

FYI: This is not a black and white.

More HERE from my Southern California series.

Cardiff by the Sea - San Diego, California

Cardiff by the Sea - San Diego, California

Street Photography San Francisco

San Francisco Photo Gallery

From a few hours of aimless wondering around one of the worlds great cities - San Francisco. Feel so grateful to have a client up there that I shoot for on a fairly regular basis, and am always sure to make some free time to squeeze in some street photography. Would love to rent an AirBnB in the city for a couple months just to continue this series. The city has so much character and texture that I’m not sure there would be a point where I’d grow tired of photographing it. Wish I felt the same way about San Diego.

Click HERE to see images of San Francisco from the last trip.

Fly Fishing the Owens River

Owens River Fly Fishing

Mammoth Lakes, California - Winter

Some time over the past couple months has been spent archiving my library of images which is a hell of a process. Sorta seems like moving houses in that you have no idea how many stuff you’ve accumulated over the years until it’s necessary to move it. Archiving my library is daunting but necessary. Should have been doing it all along. A lesson I’ve learned during this process is how easy it is to forget about images once they sit on hard drives for a certain period of time. Life goes on. You get busy. Commercial shooting and other paying projects get put on the front burner. So now I’m faced with having to archive 10+ years of imagery onto a separate site that will allow the images to be licensed instead of collecting dust on a shelf. That aside, it brings a lot of joy to see images from trips past that I haven’t looked at since they happened. Also brings the thought of travel to the forefront and what COVID has done to the possibility of doing it at all. Internationally at least.

The images you see here are from a camping trip last year to Lone Pine, CA in the Alabama Hills. On the way out we hit the Owens River briefly to see if there were any trout hanging out in a particular section we’d never been to. Turns out, there weren’t……

Click HERE for an archive of fly fishing imagery which will is still a work in progress and always will be as my library continues to grow.

San Diego Magazine -Hiking and Biking

San Diego Hiking Trails

Fun assignment a month or two back for San Diego Magazine shooting the cover/feature for their Hiking and Biking issue which seems to be a recurring thing for me. It’s been a great way to get out into parts of San Diego that I’ve never seen before. The cover “model” was Karlene Chavis - Chief Meteorologist for CBS 8. She a big hiker and was awesome to shoot/talk with during the couple hours we were out on the trail. It never gets old interacting with the real person that you don’t get to see/know on TV. I’m not at all implying that she is fake while doing the news, but there is only so much a person can do during their live broadcast. And when someone is on television, the public develops a persona for them and they are expected to always act a certain way. So whenever you’re able to see a newscaster, athlete, celebrity, etc. as just normal, not someone putting on a facade, it’s quite refreshing.

Click here to see more of my adventure photography

San Diego Magazine - Best hiking trails in San Diego

San Diego Magazine - Best hiking trails in San Diego

Basketball Never Stops

Basketball during Covid-19

It’s hard getting people to stop playing basketball. They will find a way. These image are from a court in south east San Diego during Covid that were shut down for obvious reasons. Still though, people wanted to ball and wouldn’t let anything stop them. Hard to get angry at that. They climbed the fences, went through the holes, whatever it took. So the city had to take further measures. No doubt they were only temporary solutions. Basketball never stops.

Click here to pick up a copy of American Backcourts

Colina Del Sol - San Diego

Colina Del Sol - San Diego

Basketball hoop with a chained padlock on it - San Diego, CA

Basketball hoop with a chained padlock on it - San Diego, CA

Andis Clippers

Andis Clippers

People will probably get sick of my ramblings about personal projects, but I don’t care. It’s an important message to send. As of now it’s been about 10 years since the Barbershops of America series began and I’m still on the lookout for old shops during my travels. One of the most rewarding parts about these projects is their ability to organically connect me with like minded people/brands. Andis Company is one of those brands. They started out in the 1920’s and is now being run by it’s fourth generation of the same family. Hard not to get behind a company like that. A couple years ago I stopped in to their headquarters in Wisconsin and was given a behind the scenes tour. The operation is incredibly impressive, but what stood out the most was the camaraderie and interaction between all the employees. Even during my limited time there it was obvious that they enjoyed each other and enjoyed working for Andis. So I’m proud of our past collaborations as well as this most recent image they licensed for an ad on social justice that ran in USA Today.

Andis Company

Andis Company

ROAD TRIP

Hopefully I’m wrong but this is probably the last road trip of the winter. If that’s the case, I’m thankful it was so productive. Started with some personal shooting, then a commercial shoot in Nevada, more personal shooting, and then some incredible snowboarding with friends in the San Juan’s. Really grateful for all of it, but also hate saying goodbye to winter. It’s never long enough. Or maybe I’m just greedy?

Click here to see imagery from my America series.

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Kirstie Ennis

Fitness Photography - Los Angeles

Kirstie Ennis - GNC - General Nutrition Center

GNC - I AM UNBREAKABLE

Made a previous post with one BTS image from this shoot and wanted to follow up with some of the actual campaign images. Said it last time, but this was an incredible thing to be a part of. The still images were piggy backed on the video production with a very inspiring theme. GNC, the client, teamed up with former military people and Jay Glazer/his gym (Unbreakable in Hollywood) that made a line of supplements. The video would tell the story of these military veterans who had gone through some extremely tough patches in their life due to the experiences they encountered during service. Those physical and mental problems held them down for a time, but was later used as fuel for repair, ultimately putting them all in a better place. All along the way using fitness and community as the two major components of change. It was really moving to see these alphas in front of the camera being so vulnerable and honest. Something that is almost non-existent in todays world. The shoot involved 4 different athletes, but the images here are just Jay Glazer and Kirstie Ennis.

On ad shoots like this there is always a considerable amount of planning done ahead of time in order to get as much done as possible in a very limited amount of time. The video crew had a lot to get done as did I. So we had to work together, making slots for us all to get what we needed. Initially I planned on using all my strobes and having them set up to move in the second the video crew was done with a take. Nothing ever goes as planned though. It was immediately obvious that there would be no time for lighting set-ups on the go. The only option was to just shoot with available light. So all the images you see here were shot with video lighting. That’s part of what I love about commercial sets. You’re constantly solving problems and making decisions on the fly as they come up. You do your best in the beginning to plan, but “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”, as the great Mike Tyson once said.

Click here to see more of my athlete photos.

Pasquale The Barber

Life has a tendency to take over. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but it certainly has a natural way of pushing certain things to the side. Maybe it’s just priorities? Who knows. If the downtime caused by COVID has been good for anything though, it’s been a recalculation of what’s important and what isn’t. For me, I’ve been happy to unearth some projects from the archives that haven’t ever seen the light of day. This doc we did on Pasquale The Barber is one of those projects. It was so much fun in a lot of ways, one being that it’s my first time “directing” a video production. I use those terms lightly though because it was a very small personal production between myself and cameraman Jordan Valente. I’ve know Pasquale for years now, ever since photographing him at his shop for the 1st barbershop book way back in 2011(?). This video was shot in 2018, but got buried on a hard drive when life and other commercial projects took over. The only real downside of waiting so long to put this together is that “Pat” has since retired and moved into a senior home. Fortunately we were able to track down his son who was able to play the documentary for him on his computer at the facility. And I’m told he enjoyed it very much. Cheers to Pasquale and all the other old school barbers still carrying on the tradition.

Click here to purchase a copy of “Barbershops of America - Then and Now”

Kirstie Ennis

Kirstie Ennis - Athlete

Did some shooting for GNC a couple months ago. It was a lot of fun, but that’s probably not the right word for it. Motivating. Inspirational. Those would be more accurate. The images I shot were for both advertising and general Behind-The-Scenes stills to show what went into the production. Side note, this image made me go back into my archives and realize how much BTS I’ve shot over the years. Could probably be its own body of work. The premise of the “I Am Unbreakable” shoot was to highlight military veterans who have gone through more than your average amount of physical and mental battles as a result of their time served overseas, then overcame those battles and used it as motivation to put themselves in a better place. All of the people who participated were incredible. They were real and unafraid to be vulnerable. Seeing them in this state was, in a sense, refreshing. Not because I like to see people in pain, but because it’s actually rare for people to be so honest and real about their problems. The world today has been overtaken by the “Instagram effect”, meaning that everyone wants to paint a perfect picture of their life. It’s terrible and it’s fake. So to witness these veterans lay it all out there was great. I think everybody on set left after those two days feeling a lot better about life. Would love to be involved in more campaigns like this one. The BTS image you see below is one of Kirstie Ennis - a Marine who lost her leg while serving in Afghanistan. The image won’t be used for anything but I think it tells a great story.

Swami's - Surfing

Swami’s Surfing - Wall Art - Photography Prints

Garry Winogrand said “everything is photographable” and nobody should argue with him. A lot of photographers get caught up in their “niche” or what ever it is their clients expect from them. That’s fine, but it’s also a very limiting. They think that showing other work with different subject matter will turn off their clients and “followers”. And that’s one of the major problems I have with the photography industry. It wants everyone to fit into a category and play by the rules of that particular category. If you’re a commercial shooter then you can’t shoot editorial. And a photographer that shows in museums/galleries can’t shoot for commercial clients because it will cause the fine art world to lose respect for their fine art work. Bullshit. Shoot whatever the fuck you want and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Even if you play by all the rules, you still won’t win everyone over. Not even close. So photograph whatever turns you on and it will eventually attract the right people. Take a look through my website and you’ll see quite a variety of subject matter. Everything from the most famous professional athletes to obscure street scenes without any people at all. How are they all connected? They aren’t. It’s just what I enjoy shooting. Everything on my website is in some way directly connected to my life and lifestyle. What I shoot isn’t for everybody, nor do I want it to be. Either way, I show up 110% on every shoot whether that’s for a client or for images that won’t ever come off my hard drive. I love photography and making images of everything.

For the better part of the last 15 years San Diego has been my home. You would think that at some point surfing would be added to the list of regular activities, but it hasn’t, and probably won’t. In fact, I don’t have much draw to the ocean aside from its obvious beauty and calming effects. As a dedicated backcountry snowboarder though, I have a large appreciation for the sport of surfing and the obvious parallels between the culture and lifestyle of the two sports. So when it comes to photography, it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t surf. There are aspects that draw me to photograph the sport. Like the images you see below. Are these images that my clients want to see or expect from me? No. Do I plan on pursuing assignments in the surf world? Definitely not. But Swami’s is an iconic surf break and I enjoyed making these and think of them as the kind of images I like to see coming from the world of snowboarding. So there has to be a crossover.

Contact me directly to purchase Swami’s surfing prints for your home, office, or commercial space - rob@robhammerphotography.com

AMERICAN BACKCOURTS - FINE ART PRINTS

There is no greater compliment to a project than when a person decides to hang an image on their walls. Buying art for your wall is a commitment and an expense, so it makes me extremely grateful when my image(s) is chosen out of all the other options in the world. It’s also satisfying to think about the personal connection to people across the world. Even though I may never meet most collectors in person, it’s fun to think about my images in their homes and the joy they receive from looking at them on a daily basis.

Click here to grab a fine art print from American Backcourts for yourself

FINE ART HORSE PHOTOGRAPHY

Starting new projects is so exciting. It’s also one of my downfalls. I don’t like being behind a computer, always preferring to be out in the field creating images. Which means that I don’t do enough marketing, emailing, social media, cleaning my disaster of an office, etc. I can’t help making images though. It’s addicting. After publishing America Backcourts I had no intention of stopping that series, but also wanted to wanted to start something else. The problem that I’ve learned over the years though is you can’t force a series. It has to find you or it has to come naturally. That’s the only way it sticks. You can’t shoot something because it will get likes or because you think it will do well commercially. You have to love it. As it stands now, Horses appear to be my next thing. Maybe not just horses, but the lifestyle and culture that surround them as well. I grew up in New York close to Saratoga Race Track. “The August Place To Be” as they say. Love the track. Still do and am fortunate enough to now live near Del Mar Race Track. The atmosphere around tracks is great, but the horses are the thing that tie it all together for me. That’s where my affection for horses started, but now I like the “working” aspect of horses even more. The way they are used on ranches and for transportation is especially interesting. As much as love the action though, there is something really special about the still shots. The quiet moments, like this one. If you can’t feel more relaxed by looking at an image like this, then there’s something wrong with you.

Stay tuned for more horses……

Click here to purchase a fine art print of this image

ROAD TRIP

Just back from another US road trip. Most days I think Colorado is my favorite place in America but Wyoming is now competing for the top spot. Been spending a lot of time there during all seasons over the past couple years and it just gets better the more I explore.

Side note: the first part of 2020 was quite limiting (and frustrating) for travel and rightfully so. Things have really picked up though. Most years I do about 35k+ miles of road travel throughout the USA, but it’s looking to be a heavier 12 months if things keep up at this rate.

CLICK HERE TO SEE IMAEGS FROM THE ROAD

Bishop, CA

Snowboarding is a very selfish act of mine. Aside from photography it’s the thing I love doing most in the world and the only activity where I allow myself to put the camera down. Went up to the Mammoth Lakes this past week to take advantage of the huge dump of snow they finally got and did a couple days of backcountry riding. The camera stayed in the bag except for the trip there and back. Made these two images just outside of Bishop, CA. Happy with them and happy to have made them. The snowboarding leaves me feeling extremely fulfilled, but I’d still feel guilty about being on the road without making any frames at all.

Click here to see more from my “America” series.

FINE ART HORSE PHOTOGRAPHY

Was up in the Lake Tahoe area a few weeks ago for a commercial shoot and happened on some incredible weather going over the pass into Nevada on the way to our location. No matter where I go for a client, setting aside time to shoot for myself is always very important. On this particular day there were just a few spare minutes before we started filming, but I made the most of it. This scene was actually adjacent to the set. Not sure when it happened, but I’ve got a thing for horses, and have started turning my camera toward them more and more. Got quite lucky with the birds flying overhead but love the way this frame turned out. If it weren’t for them this frame would be lacking.

Southern California Street Photography

There’s a long list of things that need improving around here, but organization and editing should be pushed to the top of the list. Although it’s certainly a plus having TOO MUCH imagery in my archives. Creating the images is fun, and sitting at the computer isn’t horrible, although my attention span for it needs help. So what happens is I build these series to the point where editing them down to a usable/publishable body of work is daunting. Overwhelming really. And if there’s one valuable thing I learned from publishing “American Backcourts”, it’s that you should leave the editing to a professional. Collaborating with a professional photo editor is priceless. We’re not talking about someone who edits each file in Photoshop or Lightroom, we’re talking about someone who can unemotionally create a cohesive body of work with your images. They aren’t attached to the work and will give it to you straight. The good ones will anyway. As of right now, I’ve probably got 2-3 more books sitting in my archives. If I was smart, I’d sit down with an editor ASAP to help sort it all out. This street photography series has been going on for about 5 years now. It started in one neighborhood near our old place in San Diego and has expanded all the way up to San Francisco. Sometimes I just walk around my neighborhood with a camera for fun, and then there are the walks during down time on out of town commercial shoots. Regardless of the situation, I get a lot of satisfaction from this style of shooting, and need to stop procrastinating on the archive.

Click HERE to see more of my Street Photography series.

The Broken Skull Sessions

Stone Cold Steve Austin

The Broken Skull Sessions

Was back on set with Stone Cold during the Broken Skull Sessions last December when he interviewed Drew McIntyre. This wasn’t on the shot list or anything. Just playing around. It’s far from perfect, but I really like how it can give the viewer a look behind the scenes. Will definitely be doing more of these and working on refining them. Not just on set, but in all sorts of different situations. It’s fun. Sort of like a puzzle.

Click here to see some of my professional athlete photography

Butte, Montana

Butte, Montana Photo Gallery

American Photography

Butte is a fun name for a town. It’s fun to say. Where you going? Butte! Back in 2012 or 2013 I wound up in Butte while shooting for Barbershops of America, but didn’t get to spend much time there. Found a hell of a shop for the book with an all time character of a barber - “The Butcher” - Joe Bugni. Legend. If you want some free entertainment, go hang out with Joe for an hour at the Amherst St. Barbershop. Anyway, after leaving Joe’s it was late and I planned on getting a hotel. Went into the lobby of one of the few that are downtown and asked first to use the bathroom. The place was dead quiet without a sign of another person besides the girl behind the desk. She directed me downstairs, which I quickly saw was almost pitch black except for the almost extinct exit sign at the far end of the very long hallway. After searching for 30 seconds or so a very dim flickering bulb came on that barely illuminated the lifeless bathroom and a very strange feeling came over me. Not sure if it was a combination of the darkness and the unexplainable noises coming from the building, but I was scared out of my mind. That’s never once happened to me and I’ve been in some of the strangest places you could image. The feeling was so strong that I exited the bathroom and sprinted down the hallway for the exit and straight back to my car. Still to this day there is no explanation.

That inability to describe the situation is how I feel about Butte in general after this most recent trip. To be sure, I’m quite taken with the town in a very positive way. But I just can’t figure out a way to explain it with words. This also happened to me with the entire state of Texas until I read “Travels with Charley”, where Steinbeck hit the nail directly on the head. Butte is a unique place to say the least. It’s gotten a certain vibe. A tangible feeling about it that you won’t experience in other places. The history of the town is quite long, which is something you can look up on the internet, but that won’t do anything to replace the feeling of being there. We spent a couple hours roaming around, during which I cracked off some frames that I’m happy with. But in order to do the town justice, I’d like to spend a month there. Maybe I should? Butte is as American a town as you’ll ever find, and I’ll no doubt be adding a few of these to my ongoing “America” series.

Side note: if you find yourself in the area and like beer, stop into the Butte Brewery. Their german style Hefeweizen is one of the best I’ve had in the States.

Happy New Year

People started writing off 2020 back around July or August and you can’t blame them for that. It’s been a shit show of a year filled with plenty to complain about. Where does that get you though? I’m certainly not impervious to complaining. I do plenty of it and am trying to be better in that category. 2020 beat up on me just as much as it did anyone else, but I made a conscious effort to be as positive as possible about making the best of a shitty situation. This last year was the slowest I’ve ever been commercially. Anything that was on the table got taken off because of COVID. Still though, there is plenty to be thankful for. Aside from the obvious things like health, family, and friends, I’m quite proud of the fact that I put out 2 books last year. Most photographers go their whole career without publishing once. Why, I’m not sure? And this isn’t me gloating in any way at all. I’m really proud of the books, but there’s also a million things I would change about both of them. At a certain point though, you have to let go. Mistakes are inevitable. You do your best to catch them beforehand, but once it’s printed, it’s there forever. You just have to move on and be happy with the fact that you put something out into the world during a time when most people just mailed it in. There is no such thing as perfect, so don’t abuse yourself for falling short of it. I fuckin hate that word, actually. And think it’s the most abused/overused one in the English language. It makes me cringe any time I’m out in public and someone uses it as a place holder for the fact that they can’t come up with anything else to say. 2020 was the opposite of perfect, yet we’re going to see as time goes on that a hell of a lot of good came out if it. I’m personally very excited for that. The bullshit will never stop. So it’s up to us to look through it and create something positive.

This was the first time I wasn’t able to go home (upstate New York) for Christmas to be with family. Wasn’t going to argue with my mother who was nervous about us traveling across the country and getting COVID, but I also wasn’t going to just sit around San Diego twiddling my thumbs. So Emily, Mojo, and I decided to take a road trip up to Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It was a great trip. Normally it takes a while to digest a trip to know who much fun it was. I can already feel it on this one though. That part of the country really please me, to say the least. Lot of images to come.

Click here to see images from my America series.

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