We recently connected with Rob Hann and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rob, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I grew up on the family farm in England. I saw my dad work long hours without complaint his whole life. I guess some of that rubbed off on me.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I started taking road trips in the United States, primarily throughout the West, in 2001. I was doing it for the thrill of discovering new places and taking the type of photographs I’d never taken before. I was living out a kind of European romantic fantasy that I’d absorbed from movies, music and books. At the time I took those first trips I was working as a photographer for magazines and record companies mostly shooting portraits of musicians, actors and writers. I started selling prints of the road trip pictures in 2010 and that gradually took over to the point where it’s now my sole income. I still get on the road with my camera whenever I can hoping to make great photos and sometimes getting close to doing that. I’m often attracted to images that I see as being surreal, cinematic, romantic and sometimes funny. Recently I’ve started experimenting with placing objects within the landscape to create something that hadn’t existed before. I enjoy the experimentation but I’m not sure where it’s taking me. In 2018 my first book, Diesel Fried Chicken, was published by The Artist Edition, a publisher working out of Copenhagen, Denmark. I’m currently working on my second, as yet untitled, book which I hope will appear either this year or next.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think that a sense of adventure, persistence and above all curiosity have served me well. I’ve certainly been lucky too and have managed to be in the right place at the right time. I would say that any person starting out on an artistic journey might find it takes much longer than they would hope to have any success or even to be doing work that is consistently strong. Try to not feel disheartened and be persistent. It may take a long time but there’s a great sense of satisfaction in getting to a place where you feel good about the work. Having said that I still, after many years of shooting, question what I’m doing and where I’m going. It’s a challenge to be always striving to come up with new and exciting work.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I’d say that Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard has been an influential book for me. It’s a book of short stories, poems and reminiscence. The pieces are both gritty and surreal. Interestingly Wim Wenders loosely based his great 1984 movie, Paris, Texas, on Motel Chronicles and Sam Shepard wrote the screenplay for the movie. Paris,Texas is one of my absolute favorite movies and I find myself often returning to both the movie and to Sam Shepard’s book for inspiration.
Contact Info:
- Website: robhann.com
- Instagram: @rob.hann
- Youtube: @robdacat
Image Credits
All photos by me, Rob Hann except for the portrait of me by Frank Foppe.
