First, The Purpose

Before I get to who Rob Rotten is and what he’s all about, I want to be clear about something...

...This is not a portfolio site.

While you’re absolutely welcome to browse the galleries and enjoy Rob’s wonderful exposures on the website alone…

...This is a store.

Rob’s images are intended to be viewed and enjoyed as prints. Buy’em. Hang’em on a wall. Give’em as a gift. Show’em to your dog. Cuddle with’em. Whatever you like. Just please consider supporting Rob’s hard work with a purchase. That would be rad.

 

Who is Rob Rotten?

Imagine for a moment, you awaken to find yourself somewhere utterly unfamiliar. It's a strange city full of flashing lights and furious sounds – car horn blasts, thudding music and enthusiastic chatter in weird, unintelligible dialects. A burst of steam flashes across your face and the fragrance of heavily spiced food assaults your nose and eyes. Thick, humid air grabs hold of you, keeps you in this one spot, and shakes you.

Something tells you to remember this moment, this alien place, and the feeling it inspires. It's fleeting, but meaningful. And there will never be another second of your life quite like this.

Now imagine that when you blink, you'll have magically captured all of this. And by doing so, you'll somehow be able to convey to anyone on Earth exactly what you've just experienced.

Such is the pursuit of photographer, Rob Rotten.

Rotten is many things – an MBA, electrical engineer, award-winning photojournalist, world traveler, and a drinker of cold ones with punkrock roots. But above all, he thirsts for adventure and the opportunity to share it with the rest of us.

 

Photojournalism and Beyond

Inspired by his grandfather, a well-respected war correspondent and newspaper man of the mid 20^th century, Rotten began his career as a photojournalist in 1999. Where others were there to ‘get the shot’ and walk, Rotten wanted to capture more than flames, emergency lights, and gawking yokels.

His true goals as a shooter are best summarized in his own observations of his grandfather’s work.

“There is an emotional exchange that occurs with the viewer and the photographer. My grandfather was unbelievably gifted at making you, the viewer, feel as if you were in the moment the exposure was captured. His gifted eye, innate abilities, and militaristic devotion to preparation/practice enabled him to capture pure emotion and frame beauty in any situation. He was an adventurer, who fearlessly trekked where no others would, to capture and bring the viewer into the moment.”

In order establish a style all his own, Rotten added inspiration from gonzo journalist, grumbling madman, and American counter-culture’s most distinguished voice, Hunter S. Thompson. He’d buy the ticket, take the ride, and capture it all as vividly as technology would allow.

The experiment was successful. Rotten became one of the San Francisco’s Bay Area’s top freelance newspaper photographers in only a few short years. Accolades and awards were plentiful. But as the new, digital millennium took hold, newsprint teetered on the edge of hopeless demise.

Even so, his journalism roots continue to bear fruit. Arguably his most vivid, if not haunting images to date were captured during the Sonoma County Wildfires of 2017. During the disaster, Rotten spent nine days on the firelines embedded with firefighters, fire crews, and equipment operators. To aid his neighbors in the aftermath, Rotten donates all proceeds from his coverage of the event to local charities.

 

Immersive Travel

When most of us think of seeing the world, we think of guided tours, cruise ships, private beaches, and crap shacks full of baubles and trinkets.

Rotten’s view is altogether different.

While others play follow the leader, Rob Rotten can be found crawling lonely backstreets – stalking the kind of authenticity you can’t find in a brochure.

“The best imagery is never acquired at hotels or tourist traps,” Rob tells me. “I take huge risks,  sometimes operating solely on blind-faith, to experience something different and to pass that along to viewers.”

After all, real lives aren’t lived in the places listed in a tourist itinerary. Instead, the heartbeat of any given city will be found elsewhere – apartment blocks dulled by automobile exhaust, brick and barbed wire re-purposed as an artists’ canvas, and urban atrophy captured without prejudice.

These are the images that tell the real tale.

But the vibrancy of life doesn’t begin and end among glass, steel, and concrete. Further out, Rotten trains his lens on evidence of both hope and decay – sometimes simultaneously. He brings us color among ancient, faded ruins. A sense of personal loss in a child’s discarded wagon.

The welcome end to a hard day's work.

Gleaming life flourishing among the relics of human tragedy.

Many of the shots you see may feel, and occasionally are, shot completely from the hip. But they’re just as often the product of careful planning and consideration.

As Rob puts it, “I strive for the ‘wow-factor’ from all of my images. Some of my landscape exposures involve extensive scouting, review of tidal and astronomical data, equipment preparation – all for capturing an instant, snapshot of time. The perfect moment. While some of my other images are purely instinctual, hunch-based or something that caught my eye.”

“There are times where luck is undoubtedly a factor, but luck does not capture the image. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Sometimes you have to go where others will not. Boring images are the result of remaining within your comfort zone.”

Of course, this approach can lead to difficult, if not dangerous situations. Misunderstandings. But for Rotten, it’s all worth it.

“Every time I travel and trust in others, my faith in humanity is renewed. Even the worst possible experiences have turned around to be all positive – even if as a lesson learned.”

Like any noteworthy artist, Rob Rotten crafts the things we cannot or will not. He goes to the kind of extremes that make most of us think twice.

He ventures to places we’d never go, even in our own minds.

That alone makes his work special.

Add to that heartfelt passion, tireless dedication, radical technique, and a perpetual drive to better his craft, and the images Rob Rotten produces are truly valuable.

Above all, his exposures are simultaneously authentic the subject and to himself. Each is a singular, sometimes curious moment in time and space that has never existed previously, and never will again in the future.

But don’t take my word for it. You’re invited to tag along as well. That’s why he’s done this for 20 years –  to take you places.

Strap in. Let’s go!

 

-Scott Goins

 

---------------------------------------------------

Scott Goins is a copywriter and occasional marketing hack based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He lived overseas for awhile. These things are true. He occasionally claims to be a karate champion (Scottie Karate) and a world-famous gambler ($cottie Dollar$). These are lies.

You can reach him at www.scottgoins.net.