It is with a much sadness that I write of the death of photographer, Photoshop expert and RPS Fenton Medal holder Robert ‘Bob’ F Rowe, aged 74. He passed away on 25 January 2021 following a fall and a subsequent cancer diagnosis last year.
To all those who met Bob he was a ‘gentle giant’ of a man - standing over 6ft tall - and someone who was only too willing to pass on his knowledge of photography and expertise with Photoshop. Alongside Adi Sethna and Barrie Thomas, he coordinated the RPS Digital Imaging Group for which he was awarded the RPS Fenton Medal in 2009.
He founded the East Midlands Digital Group which he ran for 11 years, and was a President and long-standing member of Nottingham & Notts Photographic Society for which he was awarded Honorary Membership. He was a PAGB Awards Officer for the North & East Midlands Photographic Society and provided advice, encouragement and support to many members applying for their PAGB awards. Bob travelled many thousands of miles around the UK (accompanied by his wife Melanie) teaching and lecturing in Photoshop skills, Audio-Visual techniques and photography.
In the early part of the noughties, he formed a new company with friend and Architectural photographer Martine Hamilton Knight. The aim of ‘Line & Light’ was to provide photography workshops for small groups covering a variety of skills and subjects and this business continues to this day. At the beginning of 2020 and due to the subsequent Covid 19 health restrictions Bob turned to his other great love, which was music and his home studio. Having been involved in media production, radio broadcasting and as a band member for much of his life he started to produce YouTube videos playing his beloved Fender guitars and some of his favourite music tracks. These can be viewed via a search for ‘Multitrack Man’ on YouTube.
As a keen Audio-Visual practitioner, he put together some of his music and the superb images of several close friends in the photographic world and they can be seen via the Nottingham & Notts Photographic Society website www.nnps.org as well as YouTube. The loss of anyone leaves a hole in someone’s life but Bob was such a kind and generous friend he will be very much missed by many.
To me he was more than a friend, photographer, teacher, and musician. He was just an incredibly helpful, thoughtful, caring, Bob.
Ian Taylor
An abridged version of this obituary appears in the RPS Journal (March/April 2021).