Stories Behind the Images
At RDO, each image is presented as more than a photograph. It is also part of the larger story of Robert Farber’s career, shaped by the moment in which it was created, the people and places connected to it, and the role it came to play within his evolving body of work.
Some images mark important turning points. Others gained meaning through the circumstances surrounding them, or through the life they later took on in books, exhibitions, and gallery prints. RDO was created to share not only the image itself, but also the history, experience, and artistic evolution behind it.
Projects
Running Horses
In celebration of the French Bicentennial on July 14, 1989, I was commissioned by Marshall Field’s, together with the French Tourist Board, to photograph a fashion campaign throughout France...
Fannie Foxe
This image has become one of my favorites for a very different reason, not because it represents my style at its purest, but because it holds such a specific story from 1970s America...
Snowbound
This is Snowbound, from my book Moods, published in 1980. I photographed it in 1979 at a frozen waterfall in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The idea came to me spontaneously after seeing the location...
Iman
In 1977, Iman was the new sensation in New York. Discovered by Peter Beard, originally from Somalia, she arrived with her first major modeling assignment for Vogue, and suddenly everyone was paying attention. At the same time, my own career was already moving on two parallel tracks...
The Bullfight
These photographs were made early in my career, at a time when I was drawn to moments of extraordinary visual intensity. Standing in the bullring, I became captivated by the poetry of the performance, the choreography between man and animal, the sweep of the cape, the rhythm, the light, the elegance of the movement. At times it felt more like ballet than sport.
Yet beneath that beauty was an undeniable conflict.
Adobe
When I’m in Santa Fe, or in other special places, I let myself sink into the environment, letting the feeling guide me. In that moment, the adobe curves, the desert light, and the vast sky all come together...
Descending the Staircase
I photographed this for a magazine editorial in 1977, inspired by the mood and romantic atmosphere of Visconti’s Death in Venice, based on the work of Thomas Mann...
The Quality of Life
I photographed this in New York in 1992 for an advertising campaign for the Italian fashion designer Nino Cerruti. The assignment was to interpret “the quality of life,”...
Walking the Dog
I photographed Walking the Dog in New York’s Meatpacking district in 1989 for Loden-Frey, a luxury German store that gave me the freedom to capture a more unexpected side of the city. What made the image work for me was the contrast...
Cross' Flowers
When I moved into a new apartment in New York in 1975, I got lucky in a way you can’t plan. The neighbor on my floor was John Cross, a senior creative director at a major ad agency. I was still a beginning photographer, trying to find my footing, and suddenly I had someone right next door who understood images, storytelling, and how the real world of assignments actually worked...
Empire Diner / Bloomingdales Fashion
In the late 1970s and into the ’80s I shot many fashion campaigns for Bloomingdale’s. They were bringing a new sophistication to American fashion advertising, and it was a great opportunity to apply my painterly style and storytelling that I was becoming known for in my fine art photography.
Taxi At Your Service
What has always stayed with me about this image is how much it reflects the way I often worked then, instinctively, improvising, and trying to create something sensual and painterly out of whatever was available in the moment...
The Real Gia
Most people know Gia through the headline version of her life, the HBO film, the myth of the first supermodel, the beauty, the speed, the tragedy. I understand that story, but I also knew another one, because I knew her in real time...
The Polaroids, SX-70
From the 1970s through the 1990s, the Polaroid SX-70 played an important role in my creative life. When it was introduced in the early 1970s, I took it seriously right away, not as a novelty, but as a tool that could help me reach certain creative goals..
Looking Out - Viva Magazine
This image, captured in 1977, takes me back to that fleeting moment in Southampton, Long Island. Without the budget for a foreign shoot, we found a Mediterranean spirit in a single home...
Death in Venice
As I immersed myself in the Death in Venice series, every image was a step in a personal journey. The soft beach mist, the muted whites—these were moments pulled straight from Visconti’s film, inspired by Thomas Mann’s novel...
Viva Red Dress
When I saw the Loris Azzaro gown in a Madison Avenue boutique, it sparked my vision. This image was later featured in my 1978 published fashion photography book, exhibited in museums, and even found provocative by conservative board members for its low-cut back...
Spinning Flag
I made this image while teaching a workshop at the Maine Photography Workshop in 2007. In town there was an old union hall with beautiful light coming in, and hanging on the wall was a 48-star American flag...
Night Diner
I photographed this in 1996 when I was in the Berkshires to give a lecture.
Driving down the highway near Great Barrington, I saw this diner sitting on the island of a divided road, glowing in the darkness like a little Americana oasis...