About the Artist
Bob Kolbrener was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1942 and graduated from Washington University in 1963. His passion for fine art black and white photography began in 1968 when he innocently wandered into Best’s Studio (now The Ansel Adams Gallery) in Yosemite National Park. The magnificence of the Ansel Adams original prints were overwhelming, and he has been captivated by photography since.
Bob and Sharon Kolbrener (it is not possible to know one and not the other) designed their lives around photography. They established a commercial photography business in St. Louis that provided work and an income for 10 months of the year, and made month long excursions from the Gateway to the West twice a year. In 1977 he was invited, along with Yousuf Karsh, to be an instructor at the Ansel Adams Workshop in Yosemite.
The discipline of commercial photography, of trying to reproduce the desirable qualities of the three dimensional object on a sheet of paper, was very instructive to Kolbrener. He learned, and mastered, the technical aspects “setting up the shot”: viewpoint, lighting, foreground, and background, as well as the exposure and importance of film type and speed. He took this training with him into the field, and has produced wonderful, sometimes dramatic, sometimes lighthearted, images of the West. Bob and Sharon moved to the Monterey Peninsula in 1996, and have been engaged in creative photography full time since. Kolbrener uses an 8x10” view camera and 2 1/4; single lens reflex camera only. He adheres to the concept of “straight” photography, using traditional methods of enlargement and printing without bleaching or toning the negative. The tonal qualities of his images are certainly reminiscent of Adams’ work, and the subject matter is epic. Kolbrener is one of the few black & white photographers who prints on a grand scale, and his work is, in a word, compelling.
Print Information
All photographs are created in the tradition of “straight” photography.
There is no use of computers or multiple imagery.
There is no print or negative enhancement such as bleaching or intensification.
All negatives are large (8 x 10”) or medium format.
Each print is gelatin silver, printed on fiber based paper by Bob Kolbrener.
All prints are processed to archival standards and are selenium toned.
Each print is mounted and overmatted on 100% sulfur free, museum quality board.
Ordering Information
Original photographs are hand made and not all sizes are kept in inventory.
Special orders from the photographer may take up to 4 weeks for delivery.
Please contact us at sales@anseladams.com if you have any questions about shipping and delivery.
