Robert Houser

Water. Droplets of all sizes fly from below my arm, some in focus, most not. The moment is fleeting as I grab air and quickly submerge my head for the next three strokes, until the view repeats on the other side – same collection of drops with only a few holding sharp edges while the rest fill the frame under my arm.

My view from a single ocean swimming stroke echoes the images I make (or perhaps better - echoes my work). I have always shot on the risky edge of focus, drawn to the widest aperture I can use. Play it safe (they say), stop down the lens a little bit, make sure you nail the focus. But, it’s not the same. Maybe that’s why I prefer swimming in the open ocean – there are no lines to stay between, no course to follow, and, that wall doesn’t keep showing up. : /

A thin field of focus helps me guide the story. I want you to see the details, not everything clearly. I want you to feel my connection to my subject – the person in the environment, not the person and the environment. I start by thinking every project is a portrait, making a connection with someone. I want to enter their world, and first and foremost, notice things – items around them, the way they hold a pen, the turn of a shirt sleeve, or the place of their accent as they linger on a word in a greeting. Seeing, noticing – one cannot begin a connection, a genuine connection without first noticing.

Besides spending a lot of time in salt water … I live on a farm in the city. Incongruity? Yes, I like that – remember the avoidance of the pool lane lines. I have chickens, bees and goats, but it’s the trees that center me most – forty some odd fruit trees and a fascination of live oaks, OK, maybe it’s called a gaggle of oak trees.

Background? Degrees in Psychology and Comparative Literature with French from Brown, studied Photography at RISD. My early career was spent shooting adventure travel on four continents. An emphasis in portraiture grew during the dot com days in Silicon Valley, settling into healthcare and industry focused advertising as my storytelling urges ripened.

I always stop to look at trees. And there is no body of water I haven’t jumped into, ok, maybe not the boiling pools of Yellowstone…