ROBERT CLARK is a freelance photographer based in New York City, working with the world’s leading magazines, publishers and cutting edge advertising campaigns, as well as the author of four monographs: EvolutionA Visual Record, Feathers Displays of Brilliant Plumage, First Down Houston A Year with the Houston Texans and Image America – the first photography book shot solely with a cellphone camera. During his twenty-year association with National Geographic, Clark has photographed more than 40 stories. His cover article “Was Darwin Wrong?” helped National Geographic garner a National Magazine award in 2005. Early in his career, Clark documented the lives of high school football players for the book Friday Night Lights. In 2003, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston brought Clark back to Texas to capture the first year of the new NFL team, the Houston Texans. Clark recently directed the short film “8 Seconds” as part of an advertorial campaign for Russell Athletic. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter, and is the owner of Ten Ton Studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yards. He can be followed on Instagram.
3 things Nature taught you?
Patience
The awesome power of geological evolution
How fragile it all is when we ignore it
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Joshua Tree
The Kluane National Park, Canada
The Andes, above the Sacred Valley
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Full of possibilities
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
I find forests spooky.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
I repelled into Vesuvio for a National Geographic story and it made me feel the power of Nature at awe of the amount of force that was released in the blasts from the volcano.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
I think about good light for photography, and either way it is a new beginning.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Reminds me of my childhood in Western Kansas.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Running in Western Kansas, it is always windy in my home town.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
l love the desert.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
Increasingly more important after living in Brooklyn for so long.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
My home was on the Monarch butterfly migration route, I remember going to a creek in a park and sitting down and having the butterflies cover me from head to toe.