I can be reached at rvwebber@msn.com
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As the sole proprietor and creator of this Web site, it pretty much is “all about me”. Well, not so much about me, but what I do, what I have done, and what I hope that I can do for anyone who may wish to use my services. Over the last forty years I have been involved in many aspects of photography, visual communication, education, the arts, and commercial advertising and illustration. This website presents some of the highlights of my experience during this time that show some of the diverse types of situations in which I’ve worked.
I "dodged" the draft in the early sixties of the previous century by enlisting in the Air Force. This was the start of my professional photographic career. At Vandenberg AFB with the 1369th Photo Squadron, I was involved in the photo documentation of missile launchs down the Pacific test range. For those interested in knowing about such things, the current launch schedule can be found at: http://www.spacearchive.info/vafbsked.htm
Later, at Eglin AFB in Florida, I was a film editor for documentary films done on weapons being tested for the soon to be popular Vietnam War.
I grabbed the first job I found coming out of the military in 1966, at the University of Southern California’s Cinema Department. (http://www-cntv.usc.edu/) I worked in the photo lab processing and printing the film that was shot by the students enrolled in classes there . My time there was short lived, about eight months, but I did have the pleasure of working with George Lucas (Star Wars) as he finished his senior year.
Having a family to support I sought out a larger paycheck and went to work for an educational film company. It was known at the time as Communication Films, which was later bought up by Doubleday Multimedia. At that time, Communication Films had a contract to take all of the Disney Nature Films and turn them into a series of “single concept” shorts for the classroom with an accompanying lesson plan. My job there was to re-cut the films and supervise the finished production work.
When Communication Films moved to another location, I decided it was time to take advantage of my GI bill benefits and I enrolled at Pasadena City College to add to some of the credits that I had earned while going to school in the service. Someone, a long while before, had said “If you’re interested in everything, and you don’t know what you want to do, major in Anthropology”. That was my goal, at least. I never finished getting my degree, but I remained a life-long student of “everything”.
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A friend whom I'd met while working at Communication Films, Gunther von Fritsch (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0902270/), was asked to direct a Disney television movie in the Arctic, and he asked if I would like to work with him on it. So, in April of 1969 I found myself disembarking into thirty below temperatures at Pt. Barrow, Alaska. It was certainly an interesting and educational four months. Working with the native Inuit, several large polar bears, and a couple of wolves leaves one with some stories to tell. No room to recount them all here, but here's just a few of my photos and notes from that trip and some interesting links: Alaska
Here I'm holding on to one of the wolves used in the Disney
film shot at Pt Barrow.
When I returned from Alaska and went back to college, I worked part time in the History Division of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (http://www.nhm.org/) . I dearly wanted to work in the photographic studio there, but had to settle for setting up audio visual programs and equipment for exhibits. I was able to hang out there long enough to get a taste of what I really wanted to do. But I'd have to wait about 35 years or so before I got a chance to do it.
My next great opportunity was to work at the California Institute of Technology in the Solar Astronomy Department. I did photographic laboratory support for the Big Bear Solar Observatory, and for other solar astronomy research projects conducted by the department, including training films for Skylab in the 1970s. (http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/bbso.bluebook.html) Working at Cal Tech for a year and a half was as interesting and educating as it was fun. I was able to go to lectures and seminars that I would not ordinarily have the opportunity to attend. I was able to see and hear people like Dr. Jane Goodall, Dr. Louis Leakey, and Dr. Richard Feynman. ["Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman...http://www.amasci.com/feynman.html] Plus it gave me a greater sense of the cosmos and an appreciation for the integrity of scientific research.
During my tenure at Cal Tech, and for some time after, I pursued outside freelance photo jobs wherever I could find them. Living in Pasadena, California, I connected with the Pasadena Art Museum (now the Norton Simon Art Museum), the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors and Convention Bureau, the Tournament of Roses, and various businesses and photo studios for which I did a lot of photographic work. With one studio I photographed food, furniture, and industrial machinery, and with another photo group we did “crack propagation test” photography on the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California. I also did some filming on the Navajo Indian reservation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.
Working with Harry Langdon was, without a doubt, the highpoint in my varied career. (http://www.harrylangdon.com) What can you say when going to work every day means that you are going to be with beautiful models and top Hollywood actors? One day it might be Ann Margaret or Cher, the next day might be Cheryl Ladd, Rachael Welch, or Henry Winkler. I was one of Harry’s studio assistants and his photo lab manager for three years. I have never met a better person to work for. I was able to obtain a measure of knowledge that would be impossible to learn in any school of photography. Harry is one of the great Hollywood portrait artists.
Next, taking over the color photo lab and production department at Photo Illustration Company in Burbank, California was one of the more challenging things that I’ve done. In the pre-video, non-digital age of not too many years ago, slide presentations were the order of the day. Multi-projector programs with six to nine units were common. Many individual transparencies had to be produced with original photography or from multi level artwork. But this represented a small fraction of the total amount of photo production that we did on a variety of levels. We were located only four blocks from the Disney Studios (there’s that name again!) and did a fair amount of work for them. Other clients included Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, Hanna-Barbera, Columbia Pictures, and Southern California Edison.
Then I had to sit down. I developed a debilitating hip condition which ultimately rendered me unable to stand for any length of time and put me into office work for a number of years. Subsequent hip replacements and the advent of digital computerized graphics programs have given me a new life and launched me back into field that has always been my first love, photography. Or more to the point now, graphic arts. Entering into the digital graphics medium, I wasn’t happy with off-the-shelf equipment, so I built my own infinitely up-gradable computer. I am constantly researching new software and honing my skills as the technology develops.
This brings me to where I am today. I'm semi-retired and dealing with a number of health issue that come with hanging around to long. Using Photoshop and working on a computer most of the time, I'm able to accomplish what I couldn't do in a wet lab environment. I have a wealth of photographic and graphic arts experience and a storehouse of accumulated knowledge across a pretty broad spectrum. I can't give that up, so I'm volunteering at the Cincinnati Museum Center, as my bones permit, helping to digitize their archeology collection for starters. This has brought me back to the museum photogaphy that I wanted to do some 35 plus years ago!