Meet Bob Felderman | Bob Felderman Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bob Felderman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bob, career-wise, where do you want to be in the end?
I am fortunate to be retired from the military, service disabled, and on social security. This allows me to focus on my photography without being pressured to earn to live. My expectation is for my photography to pay for my travels, equipment, and exhibition prints. My end goal is to be a recognized storyteller through images in a documentary format. Not starting into the professional line of photography until in my mid-60s, I know the path to my success is shorter than most. It has allowed me to take all of the photography paths, street, aerial, architectural, landscape, nature, people, travel, and documentary. By the end of my career, which will be a long time from now, I expect to be known for sharing the truth, the passion, and the epitome of people, places, and things, in virtual exhibitions worldwide.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am fortunate to have traveled much of our planet. First, as a child following my father’s career in the Navy from coast to coast of our nation, and then overseas to live in Japan and Italy. Next was my military career, which allowed me to complete my service with a regional focus on North Africa and the Maghreb, which included visits to the Caribbean, Mexico, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Arctic. This permitted me to interface with people, places, and things around the world. I met and talked with people who lived or worked in poverty, those middle and upper-class citizens in urban and rural settings, and the Kings and Presidents who ruled from palaces and capitals. Meeting people from all walks of life around the earth impacted my philosophy of life and my storytelling skills. These opportunities helped shape my creative focus on life challenges and opportunities. I now center on editorial and commercial photography as my path, and I am available for hire while expanding my skills. My art has stimulated me into an area I call a “generalist,” but with areas of specific interest such as documentary, aerial, street photography, architecture, and portraits. I am only a little more than a year after earning my college degree in photography, and my planned projects will take years to produce. In the meantime, I keep my skills honed through photoshoots for magazines and fine art exhibitions. It has not been easy, but it is taking so long, mostly due to medical issues and work conflicts in my real estate business. The primary lesson I learned is to focus on one path, which is why I am pushing my photography passion over the four-decade real estate career. Photography is an urge that flourishes within me, granting me the desire to pursue stories about others. I plan to continue developing my photography through storytelling. I expect to produce documentaries to be shared on behalf of a cause or effort and then shared with the world through virtual and live exhibitions.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In Colorado, I tend to base out of Golden for the past decade, but I previously lived in Colorado Springs. So, we consider our area to tour for a weeklong trip to be the Denver Metropolitan Area, which is pretty expansive, but we know how to have fun.

My weekly photography itinerary includes the Denver International Airport, the Denver Aquarium, the Denver Museum of Art, looking up for photos of the downtown cityscape, the 16th Mall tourist district, LODO (Lower Downtown), Union Station, the Colorado Photography Art Center, and the Colorado Train Museum. For street photography, Boulder will open your eyes to performers’ creativity in the downtown plaza walkway. For Golden photographs, you will see the welcome archway, Clear Creek (includes tubing), Coors Brewery, Buffalo Bill’s grave at Lookout Mountain Nature Center accessed by the Lariat Loop Trail, the Table Mountains for hiking and vistas, the Mother Cabrini Shrine, and Central City old historic cowboy town with huge new casinos.

We have found several restaurants to enjoy in the area. They include the Aquarium Restaurant (a Laundry’s Steak chain), Sherpa House in Golden, Golden Fossil Trace Golf Course Dining Room (open to the public), and the Buffalo Rose on Washington Street in downtown Golden.

For the delight of your life, you must enjoy the Frasca (Italian for a branch) in Boulder. It will be one of the most expensive meals you will ever taste, but the memory will last a lifetime. The elegance of the décor, the service, and the care from the staff, the wine list, and the food….OMG, the food. I recommend the Friulano Menu, the culinary team’s fabulous mountain experience. The staff is old-time Italian and is the best in Colorado, if not America. When you finish the excellent dessert, it is best to walk the downtown plaza. It offers street singers, jugglers, fairies, and others to entertain you.

It is always mandatory to drive up the Lookout Mountain winding road with its many stopping points to view the entire Denver area. Buffalo Bill’s Grave, a history museum, and many walking trails are at the top of the mountain.

We usually take a few hours driving up the Rocky Mountains with photo opportunities of the rock formations, trees, vistas, and landscapes.

While this can be accomplished with a week’s visit, you would enjoy it much better with a month to enjoy meeting all the fun and exciting people, places, and things.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My daughter, Jamie Rae Borland, has been a professional portrait photographer for over 25 years. Her recognized specialty is weddings, and she was one of the top wedding photographers in Florida and the Southeast United States. Jamie Rae was my first photography mentor. As I was preparing to retire from the military, with plans to return from a six-year active duty mission back to my real estate and appraisal career, I knew something was missing…photography. She guided me on the right equipment to purchase, learn, and use. She critiqued my efforts to improve my skills, but her work is what inspired me. Her ability to direct large weddings, one wedding was over a million dollars, get everyone in the photo, and edit it to perfection, was astounding to me. I was an assistant at a wedding she shot in The Bahamas, and I knew weddings were not for me, but traveling the island and shooting the architecture and people thrilled me. It opened up the right side of my brain. So, my dedication would be to my daughter, Jamie Rae, the princess of my life and the inspiration for my photography.

Website: https://www.bobfeldermanphotography.com

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertfelderman/

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Other: https://bobfeldermanphotography.smugmug.com/

Image Credits
Bob Felderman