Randall Hobbet Photography
I’ve lugged a camera around since my teen years, influenced by my father, a talented and passionate amateur photographer with a home darkroom. So after a 33-year career as an international geologist and years of living abroad and wide travels, it seemed natural that I use photography as my chosen medium in seeking creative outlets when I retired back to the San Francisco Bay area in late 2013.
I’ve long been in thrall to the beautiful in all its forms. Thus as a photographer during my working years I had pursued many different subjects from wildlife to landscapes to architecture to abstract. It’s curious that in much of my photography I long sought to avoid people in the picture. Yet I always loved the female form – who doesn’t!—and over the years I also had a growing love of dance, undoubtedly related to that fact. It was only as I approached retirement and had the financial means to work with professional models and mentors that I could explore these subjects as I had long aspired to and take my photography to a higher level.
Dance and art nudes are currently my two primary areas of photographic interest. One challenge I find particularly interesting is trying to capture the fleeting aspect of beauty. These fugitive moments can be in the millisecond moment of a dancer, an emotion passing across the face; or the life force of animate nature, be it animal or plant, the patience of a heron, the predatory gaze of a cat or owl, the flower of womanhood…
The fleeting moment can also entail changing light in a landscape, or as in long exposure photography, it can approach from the other side to express persistence in time, the energy flux of passing clouds, the flow of a stream, the endless churn of the oceans, the star tracks of the heavens… and yet it is still a moment in deep time, nothing is eternal…
I have been published in several magazine issues of Model Society including a special edition featuring my dance work exclusively, here:
https://modelsocietymagazine.com/dancers-by-randall-hobbet/
I also have two published books which you can find here (with digital previews):
https://www.blurb.com/b/8055842-seeking-beauty
https://www.blurb.com/b/6996381-melissa-ann
I have a book in progress which will be the best of my decade of work with dancers, including many professionals with Bay Area dance companies (San Francisco Ballet, Smuin Ballet, Diablo Ballet, Ballet22__ ) and elsewhere. My publisher will be Snap Collective and the book can be pre-ordered now at:
https://shop.snap-collective.com/products/on-the-light-fantastic-toe-by-randall-hobbet
My instagram pages are:
@rdhobbet for my work with dancers
@randhobbes2 and @randhobbes_art (private/fine art creatives and friends please request) for my art nude photography
I'm also on Purple Port:
