We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rob Marlow a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Rob thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
Photography is a medium that has always brought tremendous amounts of joy to my daily life. For me, It is a form of meditation and something I run to when it seems nothing else is going right in the world. However, my camera is never more than an arms reach away.
My photography journey is one that started as an outlet and a way of capturing and collecting memories as life passes me by. It’s the ability to capture and preserve the fleeting moments. The people I’m with, the settings and scenes I find myself in and the happenings all around me. As I got to sharing some of my captures with others, I had been asked many times “Why don’t you make a career of this? This is really good!”. Not thinking much of my own work, I never really considered it, As time has passed and others continued to ask the same question of why I wasn’t pursuing it, I found myself asking the same question and I am currently starting on the path of building up a following, creating relationships that can later evolve and general networking to get myself established in my immediate community.
Like many others, I have always dreamed of being my own boss and working for myself. Let’s be real though; with the state of technology, let alone everyone possessing a cell phone camera these days, it has become increasingly difficult for photographers to make a lucrative earning solely off of their photography career. There’s challenges ahead to be be faced and I’m ready to tackle them.
Rob, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Photography is my single greatest passion in life. If I could have nothing else in life, but retain one possession, it’s my camera. I was introduced to photography from a young age and my love for it has only grown as the years have passed. It began with capturing everyday moments of friends, family and loved ones and has evolved into fine landscapes, thoughtfully composed candid (and not) street scenes, portraits and documenting the everyday worldly happenings near and wherever I can reach.
My style of making pictures I feel is what really defines me as a photographer: Minimalist and true to the eye. We live in a heavily digitized age where everything seems so…artificial? My aim in capturing moments is always to accurately portray what my eye saw through the lens. This is something I personally greatly pride myself in as it seems classic photography as it was known at one time, is slowly being buried by the instant ability to greatly alter images of all kinds.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My ultimate mission with my creative journey is to eventually make it my means to a living full time while being able to do away with my day job and other sources of work and income. What that looks like? Your guess is as good as mine. It could be taking a position with the local paper and highlighting the High Schools recent win, or I could be taking a contract job that sends me to a foreign nation to document and highlight a crisis that the mainstream won’t put a shed of light on.
My only focus right now is to showcase a variety of my very best work and grow a bit of an audience. As someone who resisted the evolution of technology for the longest time, I may have slacked off on the online community building.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of photography for me is knowing that the images I capture and make have the potential to far outlive me. Pictures make things real. Beyond just a story. History needs pictures and I’m thrilled to get them. 
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Jason Clifton & Rob Marlow