8 minute read
His Pictures are Worth A Thousand Words
Seattle golf photographer Rob Perry is one of the world’s best and his passion for his craft is his signature
BY BOB SHERWIN • FOR CASCADE GOLFER
Rob Perry was on a road trip last year, visiting Waterton Lakes National Park. Waterton Lakes is about 45 minutes from the U.S. border, 60 miles north of Montana’s Glacier National Park. He was there in the Canadian Rockies to photograph the wondrous scenery and wildlife, but what he got was serendipity.
“I stumbled across a golf course sign. I didn’t know there was one here,” Perry says. “I think to myself, ‘a golf course with this amazing background, I need to come back and photograph this.’”
It’s what he does… and did. Just a couple months ago, when returning to the U.S. from a photo shoot in Jasper, Alberta, Canada, (he drove six hours back to that spot) to Waterton Lakes Golf Course. Yes, he was driving, but he was also driven.
“I knew it was more of a morning (sunlight) course, not an afternoon course because of the mountains. So, I got up early, went to this one hole, and waited,” he says. “The fall colors and the clouds in the sky, everything just kind of lit up. It was like, ‘yes, this is going to be a cool shot.’ And I got rewarded.”
“Sometimes you see it in the camera when it’s happening, and you just know it. All the elements had just come together for me to get this great shot,” he explains. “It takes planning. That’s why you scout. You figure out what hole is going to get the first light of the day and where do I want to be when that hits this course. And is that going to be a dramatic, awesome, spectacular shot, or is there going to be another hole that’s going to offer that? You’re going to need to make decisions, and hopefully, get lucky.”
Rob Perry is a lucky man. He’s one of those fortunate individuals who, for 30 years, has made a living doing what he loves and which most of us would consider play. Born and raised in Bellevue, Perry — who recently moved to Montana — is one of the nation’s finest golf course photographers. You’ve probably seen many of his signature pieces in golf magazines, course brochures, or on the front of a scorecard without knowing it. He’s the guy with an eye behind the lens, perpetually seeking the dramatic, awesome, and spectacular.
His life’s work can be summed up in dazzling fashion on his website, RobPerryPhotography.com. It’s a bit of a world tour of some of the most scenic and evocative golf holes on the planet. He has built his reputation to such a degree that hundreds of golf courses — in 14 states and six countries — have hired him to showcase their properties over the years.
No matter where he goes or what a course might offer (not all golf holes are so inspirational), Perry has one outcome in mind: To make the viewer think, “I would love to play that hole.”
To do that, it takes explicit planning and a healthy degree of patience. Sunlight is a golf photographer’s most abiding friend, and cloud cover his most persistent adversary. Perry was once authorized by the USGA to take some advance shots of a Tulsa golf course but was grounded for a full week because of clouds which stubbornly refused to move.
“Once you get on the course, it’s a matter of assessing the architectural features and monitoring the direction of sunlight while looking for clean backgrounds,” Perry says.
“There are things you have to deal with, like maintenance staff getting the course ready early in the morning, or dodging golfers in the afternoon,” he adds. “I try not to let anyone know when I’m shooting, because the viewer can then picture themselves playing the course. Once you see a person in the shot, your eye automatically goes to them instead of the course.”
Perry always uses a tripod for a secure and stable shot. Height provides an enhanced perspective, so he’ll use a ladder, a high point on the hole, a balcony on the clubhouse or even a nearby building. He has been invited to use a helicopter three times — once in Missouri and twice in Washington — at both Newcastle and Alta Lake.
He has recently purchased a drone but needs to pass the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) test to shoot commercially. He warns that “once you get too high, the ground tends to flatten out and you lose the sense of undulation.”
After graduating with a business degree from Seattle University, Perry worked in his family’s food distribution business until it was bought out by Kraft Foods. The transition to working for a large corporation changed his perspective on life, and after two years, he made a change.
During that time, Perry took pictures for a friend’s apparel company catalogue. That friend suggested he think about doing it for a living.
“Photography wasn’t even on my radar as a career,” he remembers. “It was something I was doing just to help him out.”
Perry eventually took the idea seriously and, at age 29, began a three-year program at the renowned Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif.
“I wanted to do something I enjoyed and was passionate about,” he says. “If I could combine photography with golf and create a job, that would be awesome.”
This was before digital cameras, so Perry was required to use a 4-by-5 view camera that only had two-picture capability on the film holder. He said that allowed the students to slow down, be patient, and compose the picture before pressing the shutter.
Before he graduated from Brooks, Perry needed to put together a portfolio of work. It was up to him to coldcall prospects and ask permission to shoot a course in the hope the operators would be impressed enough to purchase his images.
The first course he photographed was Sandpiper Golf Club in Goleta, Calif. That led to other opportunities in SoCal, including the prestigious Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks — where The Shark Shootout was held from 1989 to 1999 — and the Hero World Challenge (then sponsored by Chevron) was hosted by Tiger Woods from 2000 to 2013. Perry’s images caught the eye of the USGA, and he was hired to shoot courses around the country where championship events were to be held.
Perry settled back in Bellevue, and his reputation followed with several Northwest course operators wanting his touch for their brochures. KemperSports, which manages more than 150 courses worldwide (including Chambers Bay), commissioned him. Oki Golf used him to artistically promote new, and newly acquired, courses around Puget Sound.
He had what he sought: a job and a reputation. He had made it.
Not really.
“I’ve never looked at myself and thought, ‘I’ve made it,’” Perry says. “It’s more of a passion than it is work for me. And it’s not financially driven. Getting paid for what you do is great, but the job stability isn’t great. I made it work, though. You do it because you love it.”
Perry’s motivation is neither centered on monetary return, nor acclaim, nor kudos. It’s inner-driven. It’s how he feels when the light is right, the angle is flawless, and conditions are most favorable. It’s a fleeting flash, a kismet. Something that will never be exactly the same again. It’s at that precise moment that he gets his reward.
“Going on to a new golf course that has incredible scenery is like Christmas morning for me,” he says. “It’s fun to hopefully capture images that evoke emotion and a response from the viewer.”
Editor’s Note: For years, Cascade Golfer has had the great fortune to feature countless images by Rob Perry of courses here in the Northwest and around the world. We’re blessed to publish Rob’s photos and call him a friend.
