About The Photographer Robert Anderson

I am a native westerner, born in Wheatland and raised in Casper, Wyoming. However, the landscapes of the Hoosier heartland have captured my heart, and it was Florida that first awakened my dormant love of photography. In the early 80’s, while living in Daytona Beach, my friends introduced me to the magic of developing silver gelatin black and white prints in the darkroom, and I haven’t looked back or regretted it since. My interest in the medium and its potential did not wane during the 80’s. In l988, I decided to return to Wyoming and launch into serious study of the medium. Two years later I received an associate’s degree in commercial photography from Northwest College, Powell, Wyoming. This was followed by six years of professional photojournalism in the employ of newspapers in Glendive and Lander, Wyoming.

Propelled by an urge to teach and share my love of photography, my wife Harumi and I moved to Tempe, Arizona where I obtained my bachelor’s degree in fine art photography from Arizona State. Studies there swayed me to shift from the austerities of black and white to the lushness of color. The beauty and textures of the low Sonoran desert were particularly suited to a color palette, and by the same token my subject matter shifted to nature. My expressiveness at this point was driven by a desire to call attention to nature’s beauty and subtleties.

Continuing my studies at Arizona State, I earned a master’s degree in photo history and in the process experimented with platinum palladium and Van Dyke prints, a little-known process used in the early 1800’s before the advent of electricity. This technique utilizes direct sunlight to expose and create the print.

After a brief stint in Bowling Green, Kentucky, we moved to Columbus Indiana in the year 2000. This signaled another important shift in my approach to photography. Digital was coming into its own, and I jumped at the opportunity to expand my knowledge in this area. Digital is particularly attractive to me and many other photographers because the work can be done under conventional lighting and without messy chemicals.

Although the we were loathe to leave the grandiose beauty of the Arizona mountains and deserts, I kept an open mind and have found new inspiration for my nature work in the fields, farmlands and parks of the midwest. There is beauty all around us. All you have to do is slow down and look. By so doing, I found out that there is an amazing amount of beauty in the American heartland.

Moving to Columbus allowed me to connect with the local dance community and rediscover the fun of photojournalism in a new setting. I apply the same philosophy to the context of dance as I do to my nature photography. You don’t have to understand all of the dance moves, if you just look closely at the artistry of the dancers, the way they move and the grace and style they put into those moves… it is as beautiful as anything Mother Nature ever created.

Occasionally, however, just for the love of craft, I break out the old darkroom equipment and return to the traditional methods I first learned over 25 years ago. .There is nothing like watching a new image being born as it floats in a tray of developer.

I work out of my business, Stillframes Photo, which is located at 811 Lindsey St. in Columbus Indiana. There Ido commercial, product and advertising photography as well as photograph fine art for artists, create fine art prints from their original paintings and maintain a state-of-the-art graphic design studio.