Feels so good to see the world opening back up. Over the last week especially there has been so much life out on the street and in the local shops, restaurants, and bars. Grateful to have the opportunity to be social again while sharing some work from American Backcourts. So if you’re in San Diego during the month of June, stop on by Culture Brewing Company in Encinitas to check out some fine art prints while enjoying some delicious craft beer in the sunshine.
Observations From The Streets of San Francisco
Walking San Francisco: Photographing Architecture, Texture, and the Street
San Francisco is a city that reveals itself slowly. The longer you walk, the more the streets begin to feel less like routes and more like a series of surfaces, shapes, and quiet visual relationships. These photographs were made during unstructured walks through different neighborhoods, paying attention to buildings, streets, and the way light interacts with the built environment.
This work approaches San Francisco street photography as a study of place rather than activity. Many of the images are absent of people, allowing architecture, texture, and atmosphere to carry the frame. The goal isn’t to describe the city, but to observe it as it exists when nothing is being asked of it.
Architecture as the Subject
In these photographs, buildings are not backdrops — they are the subject. Facades, windows, doors, walls, and corners become compositional elements that speak quietly about time and use. Paint fades unevenly. Materials weather differently. Lines repeat and break across blocks.
San Francisco’s architecture holds a visible record of change. Older structures sit alongside newer ones, often within the same frame. By focusing on these details, the photographs document how the city holds its history in plain sight, without nostalgia or commentary.
Texture, Light, and Stillness
Much of this work is rooted in stillness. Cracked sidewalks, layered paint, utility lines, and signage form subtle visual rhythms that are easy to miss when moving quickly. Light plays a critical role — cutting sharply across facades, flattening surfaces in fog, or revealing detail through shadow.
Walking through San Francisco, these elements repeat and evolve. Neighborhoods shift, but certain textures remain constant. The photographs are made by waiting for those small moments when surface, structure, and light briefly align.
Street Photography as Observation
There is no attempt here to explain the city or impose a narrative. The photographs function as visual notes — fragments gathered while paying attention. By stepping away from gesture and event, the work allows the city’s atmosphere to remain unresolved.
Seen collectively, these images offer a restrained way of looking at San Francisco: through its streets, its surfaces, and the quiet spaces that exist whether or not anyone is watching.
Explore the Complete San Francisco Street Photography Gallery
This ongoing archive of architectural and urban street photography documents neighborhoods, textures, and the visual atmosphere of San Francisco.
View the Full Gallery
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Bright, Natural Fitness Photography for Active Brands
Real Smiles, Real Sweat: Fitness Photography with a Bright Vibe
Not every fitness shoot has to be gritty and intense. Sometimes, what a brand really needs is a visual story that feels approachable, fresh, and full of life.
This blog post is a little collection of recent fitness images that lean into that lighter side—bright colors, natural light, real smiles, and real movement. These sessions are all about capturing people who genuinely love being active, whether that’s a high-energy group workout in the park or a personal trainer laughing between sets with a client.
Most of these images were shot using natural light and strobes to feel natural but polished, and I focused on letting moments unfold rather than forcing poses. When the energy is right, you don't need to fake anything. Real interaction and movement always look better than anything staged.
Whether you're a fitness brand looking to launch your next campaign, a local Denver trainer updating your website, or a gym owner who wants to show the personality behind the brand—this is the kind of work that speaks to people.
Bright. Positive. Real.
If your brand leans toward the uplifting, inclusive, and empowering side of fitness, I’d love to help tell that story with visuals that feel like your community.
Let’s make something that feels good - rob@robhammerphotography.com
McKittrick Oil Field
A lot of people are under the impression that California is all sunny beaches, when really a great deal of it is made up of farms, desert, and desolate land like you see here at the McKittrick Oil Fields. To be honest, I had no idea that they even existed until stumbling on them a few weeks ago during a trip up to San Francisco for a commercial shoot. These images go into the “reaction” category, as this certainly wasn’t something I set out to photograph. Most of the images from my “America” series are that way. Although over time it’s become obvious that a factor which often attracts me is disruptions. This scene is a textbook example. The way these oil fields and all the equipment disrupt an otherwise natural and beautiful scene is shocking. It’s also a shame. Lot of money to made there though, so it’s not going to stop. Beyond the obvious things in the images though, scenes like this always make me curious about the lives of the people who work and live here.
Street Photography - San Diego
San Diego Photo Gallery
Trying to be better about posting more of all the different genres of my photographs here on the blog, and that includes commercial work. Here are some street photographs made in downtown San Diego over the past few months over several sessions. Still trying to pull this whole project together in a cohesive way. Not sure how to do that as the body of images has grown so large that I don’t even know where to begin. Way back in say 2015 when this series started I was calling it “The Lajolla Poject” because I only intended on focusing this series on the streets/neighborhoods of LaJolla. Now it’s spanned all the way up to San Francisco. Time for a long talk with a photo consultant.
Street Photography San Francisco
San Francisco Photo Gallery
From a few hours of aimless wondering around one of the worlds great cities - San Francisco. Feel so grateful to have a client up there that I shoot for on a fairly regular basis, and am always sure to make some free time to squeeze in some street photography. Would love to rent an AirBnB in the city for a couple months just to continue this series. The city has so much character and texture that I’m not sure there would be a point where I’d grow tired of photographing it. Wish I felt the same way about San Diego.
Click HERE to see images of San Francisco from the last trip.
Fly Fishing the Owens River
Owens River Fly Fishing
Mammoth Lakes, California - Winter
Some time over the past couple months has been spent archiving my library of images which is a hell of a process. Sorta seems like moving houses in that you have no idea how many stuff you’ve accumulated over the years until it’s necessary to move it. Archiving my library is daunting but necessary. Should have been doing it all along. A lesson I’ve learned during this process is how easy it is to forget about images once they sit on hard drives for a certain period of time. Life goes on. You get busy. Commercial shooting and other paying projects get put on the front burner. So now I’m faced with having to archive 10+ years of imagery onto a separate site that will allow the images to be licensed instead of collecting dust on a shelf. That aside, it brings a lot of joy to see images from trips past that I haven’t looked at since they happened. Also brings the thought of travel to the forefront and what COVID has done to the possibility of doing it at all. Internationally at least.
The images you see here are from a camping trip last year to Lone Pine, CA in the Alabama Hills. On the way out we hit the Owens River briefly to see if there were any trout hanging out in a particular section we’d never been to. Turns out, there weren’t……
Click HERE for an archive of fly fishing imagery which will is still a work in progress and always will be as my library continues to grow.
San Diego Magazine -Hiking and Biking
San Diego Hiking Trails
Fun assignment a month or two back for San Diego Magazine shooting the cover/feature for their Hiking and Biking issue which seems to be a recurring thing for me. It’s been a great way to get out into parts of San Diego that I’ve never seen before. The cover “model” was Karlene Chavis - Chief Meteorologist for CBS 8. She a big hiker and was awesome to shoot/talk with during the couple hours we were out on the trail. It never gets old interacting with the real person that you don’t get to see/know on TV. I’m not at all implying that she is fake while doing the news, but there is only so much a person can do during their live broadcast. And when someone is on television, the public develops a persona for them and they are expected to always act a certain way. So whenever you’re able to see a newscaster, athlete, celebrity, etc. as just normal, not someone putting on a facade, it’s quite refreshing.
Click here to see more of my adventure photography
San Diego Magazine - Best hiking trails in San Diego
Basketball Never Stops
Basketball during Covid-19
It’s hard getting people to stop playing basketball. They will find a way. These image are from a court in south east San Diego during Covid that were shut down for obvious reasons. Still though, people wanted to ball and wouldn’t let anything stop them. Hard to get angry at that. They climbed the fences, went through the holes, whatever it took. So the city had to take further measures. No doubt they were only temporary solutions. Basketball never stops.
Colina Del Sol - San Diego
Basketball hoop with a chained padlock on it - San Diego, CA
Andis Clippers
Andis Clippers
People will probably get sick of my ramblings about personal projects, but I don’t care. It’s an important message to send. As of now it’s been about 10 years since the Barbershops of America series began and I’m still on the lookout for old shops during my travels. One of the most rewarding parts about these projects is their ability to organically connect me with like minded people/brands. Andis Company is one of those brands. They started out in the 1920’s and is now being run by it’s fourth generation of the same family. Hard not to get behind a company like that. A couple years ago I stopped in to their headquarters in Wisconsin and was given a behind the scenes tour. The operation is incredibly impressive, but what stood out the most was the camaraderie and interaction between all the employees. Even during my limited time there it was obvious that they enjoyed each other and enjoyed working for Andis. So I’m proud of our past collaborations as well as this most recent image they licensed for an ad on social justice that ran in USA Today.
Andis Company
ROAD TRIP
Hopefully I’m wrong but this is probably the last road trip of the winter. If that’s the case, I’m thankful it was so productive. Started with some personal shooting, then a commercial shoot in Nevada, more personal shooting, and then some incredible snowboarding with friends in the San Juan’s. Really grateful for all of it, but also hate saying goodbye to winter. It’s never long enough. Or maybe I’m just greedy?
Fitness Photographer for Wellness Brands
Authentic Campaign Photography for Health, Fitness & Supplement Brands
Some shoots stick with you—and this one definitely did.
This project was created for GNC, shot at Unbreakable Performance Center in Los Angeles. The goal was to create strong, authentic visual content that aligned with GNC’s mission: fueling strength, inside and out. The story behind the people in front of the camera made that mission come to life in a powerful way.
One of the athletes featured was Kirstie Ennis, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, amputee, and all-around badass. She's an adaptive athlete, mountaineer, and motivational speaker—and someone whose presence in front of the camera is both powerful and humbling. She doesn’t just show strength—she redefines it.
Alongside her was Jay Glazer, founder of Unbreakable and a force in both the sports and wellness worlds. His gym is home to elite athletes, fighters, and celebrities—but more than that, it’s a space that’s all about building both physical and mental toughness.
For this shoot, I focused on clean, brand-forward imagery with impact. We used Unbreakable’s raw and gritty environment as a backdrop, while keeping the lighting and compositions sharp and intentional. The visuals had to reflect real movement, real muscle, and real power—because that’s what the brand (and these subjects) are all about.
If you're a nutrition or wellness brand looking for visuals that feel grounded in real people, real athletes, and real stories—I’d love to talk. Whether your shoot calls for high-performance energy or quiet strength, I bring the same mix of professionalism, collaboration, and grit to every project.
Pasquale The Barber
Life has a tendency to take over. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, but it certainly has a natural way of pushing certain things to the side. Maybe it’s just priorities? Who knows. If the downtime caused by COVID has been good for anything though, it’s been a recalculation of what’s important and what isn’t. For me, I’ve been happy to unearth some projects from the archives that haven’t ever seen the light of day. This doc we did on Pasquale The Barber is one of those projects. It was so much fun in a lot of ways, one being that it’s my first time “directing” a video production. I use those terms lightly though because it was a very small personal production between myself and cameraman Jordan Valente. I’ve know Pasquale for years now, ever since photographing him at his shop for the 1st barbershop book way back in 2011(?). This video was shot in 2018, but got buried on a hard drive when life and other commercial projects took over. The only real downside of waiting so long to put this together is that “Pat” has since retired and moved into a senior home. Fortunately we were able to track down his son who was able to play the documentary for him on his computer at the facility. And I’m told he enjoyed it very much. Cheers to Pasquale and all the other old school barbers still carrying on the tradition.
Click here to purchase a copy of “Barbershops of America - Then and Now”
Swami's - Surfing
Swami’s Surfing - Wall Art - Photography Prints
Garry Winogrand said “everything is photographable” and nobody should argue with him. A lot of photographers get caught up in their “niche” or what ever it is their clients expect from them. That’s fine, but it’s also a very limiting. They think that showing other work with different subject matter will turn off their clients and “followers”. And that’s one of the major problems I have with the photography industry. It wants everyone to fit into a category and play by the rules of that particular category. If you’re a commercial shooter then you can’t shoot editorial. And a photographer that shows in museums/galleries can’t shoot for commercial clients because it will cause the fine art world to lose respect for their fine art work. Bullshit. Shoot whatever the fuck you want and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks. Even if you play by all the rules, you still won’t win everyone over. Not even close. So photograph whatever turns you on and it will eventually attract the right people. Take a look through my website and you’ll see quite a variety of subject matter. Everything from the most famous professional athletes to obscure street scenes without any people at all. How are they all connected? They aren’t. It’s just what I enjoy shooting. Everything on my website is in some way directly connected to my life and lifestyle. What I shoot isn’t for everybody, nor do I want it to be. Either way, I show up 110% on every shoot whether that’s for a client or for images that won’t ever come off my hard drive. I love photography and making images of everything.
For the better part of the last 15 years San Diego has been my home. You would think that at some point surfing would be added to the list of regular activities, but it hasn’t, and probably won’t. In fact, I don’t have much draw to the ocean aside from its obvious beauty and calming effects. As a dedicated backcountry snowboarder though, I have a large appreciation for the sport of surfing and the obvious parallels between the culture and lifestyle of the two sports. So when it comes to photography, it doesn’t matter to me that I don’t surf. There are aspects that draw me to photograph the sport. Like the images you see below. Are these images that my clients want to see or expect from me? No. Do I plan on pursuing assignments in the surf world? Definitely not. But Swami’s is an iconic surf break and I enjoyed making these and think of them as the kind of images I like to see coming from the world of snowboarding. So there has to be a crossover.
Contact me directly to purchase Swami’s surfing prints for your home, office, or commercial space - rob@robhammerphotography.com
AMERICAN BACKCOURTS - FINE ART PRINTS
There is no greater compliment to a project than when a person decides to hang an image on their walls. Buying art for your wall is a commitment and an expense, so it makes me extremely grateful when my image(s) is chosen out of all the other options in the world. It’s also satisfying to think about the personal connection to people across the world. Even though I may never meet most collectors in person, it’s fun to think about my images in their homes and the joy they receive from looking at them on a daily basis.
Click here to grab a fine art print from American Backcourts for yourself
FINE ART HORSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Starting new projects is so exciting. It’s also one of my downfalls. I don’t like being behind a computer, always preferring to be out in the field creating images. Which means that I don’t do enough marketing, emailing, social media, cleaning my disaster of an office, etc. I can’t help making images though. It’s addicting. After publishing America Backcourts I had no intention of stopping that series, but also wanted to wanted to start something else. The problem that I’ve learned over the years though is you can’t force a series. It has to find you or it has to come naturally. That’s the only way it sticks. You can’t shoot something because it will get likes or because you think it will do well commercially. You have to love it. As it stands now, Horses appear to be my next thing. Maybe not just horses, but the lifestyle and culture that surround them as well. I grew up in New York close to Saratoga Race Track. “The August Place To Be” as they say. Love the track. Still do and am fortunate enough to now live near Del Mar Race Track. The atmosphere around tracks is great, but the horses are the thing that tie it all together for me. That’s where my affection for horses started, but now I like the “working” aspect of horses even more. The way they are used on ranches and for transportation is especially interesting. As much as love the action though, there is something really special about the still shots. The quiet moments, like this one. If you can’t feel more relaxed by looking at an image like this, then there’s something wrong with you.
Stay tuned for more horses……
ROAD TRIP
Just back from another US road trip. Most days I think Colorado is my favorite place in America but Wyoming is now competing for the top spot. Been spending a lot of time there during all seasons over the past couple years and it just gets better the more I explore.
Side note: the first part of 2020 was quite limiting (and frustrating) for travel and rightfully so. Things have really picked up though. Most years I do about 35k+ miles of road travel throughout the USA, but it’s looking to be a heavier 12 months if things keep up at this rate.
Bishop, CA
Snowboarding is a very selfish act of mine. Aside from photography it’s the thing I love doing most in the world and the only activity where I allow myself to put the camera down. Went up to the Mammoth Lakes this past week to take advantage of the huge dump of snow they finally got and did a couple days of backcountry riding. The camera stayed in the bag except for the trip there and back. Made these two images just outside of Bishop, CA. Happy with them and happy to have made them. The snowboarding leaves me feeling extremely fulfilled, but I’d still feel guilty about being on the road without making any frames at all.
FINE ART HORSE PHOTOGRAPHY
Was up in the Lake Tahoe area a few weeks ago for a commercial shoot and happened on some incredible weather going over the pass into Nevada on the way to our location. No matter where I go for a client, setting aside time to shoot for myself is always very important. On this particular day there were just a few spare minutes before we started filming, but I made the most of it. This scene was actually adjacent to the set. Not sure when it happened, but I’ve got a thing for horses, and have started turning my camera toward them more and more. Got quite lucky with the birds flying overhead but love the way this frame turned out. If it weren’t for them this frame would be lacking.
Southern California Street Photography
There’s a long list of things that need improving around here, but organization and editing should be pushed to the top of the list. Although it’s certainly a plus having TOO MUCH imagery in my archives. Creating the images is fun, and sitting at the computer isn’t horrible, although my attention span for it needs help. So what happens is I build these series to the point where editing them down to a usable/publishable body of work is daunting. Overwhelming really. And if there’s one valuable thing I learned from publishing “American Backcourts”, it’s that you should leave the editing to a professional. Collaborating with a professional photo editor is priceless. We’re not talking about someone who edits each file in Photoshop or Lightroom, we’re talking about someone who can unemotionally create a cohesive body of work with your images. They aren’t attached to the work and will give it to you straight. The good ones will anyway. As of right now, I’ve probably got 2-3 more books sitting in my archives. If I was smart, I’d sit down with an editor ASAP to help sort it all out. This street photography series has been going on for about 5 years now. It started in one neighborhood near our old place in San Diego and has expanded all the way up to San Francisco. Sometimes I just walk around my neighborhood with a camera for fun, and then there are the walks during down time on out of town commercial shoots. Regardless of the situation, I get a lot of satisfaction from this style of shooting, and need to stop procrastinating on the archive.
