Robert Ford @GeoBob's Photography & Consulting
Art Form
Geotourism, conservation, and travel photography
Media
Photography
Artist Bio
Robert Ford is a semi-retired geoscientist, agriculture and public health specialist, development consultant, conservationist, and "geotourism" photographer focused on Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Inter-Mountain West--particularly Southern Utah.
He was born and raised abroad of US missionaries working in Central America on the Miskito Coast of Honduras, Belize, and Nicaragua. He is fluent in both Spanish and French. Outside his academic posts, e.g. AUCA and CGIS/NUR in Rwanda, USU (Logan), BYU (Provo), Westminster College of Salt Lake City, and Loma Linda University (California) he has also worked for and consulted with many non-governmental and governmental entities including the USAID, USDA, ADRA, World Vision International, UAE (Abu Dhabi), the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, and the Frankfurt Zoological Society.
For four years he worked at the US State Department and USDA in Washington DC leading projects focused on "sustainability" of small farmers facing drought and other environmental stresses, first in the Clinton Administration, then under Colin Powell in the Bush Administration.
He owns and operates his own small business—GeoBob’s Photography and Consulting--located on a small ranch along the Virgin River. His property--a small nine acre ranch--is managed as a "conservation easement" in association with The Nature Conservancy of Utah and the Virgin River Land Preservation Association.
Besides his civic work in the Zion Corridor he is an active participant in the local arts scene with the Southern Utah Art Guild, Arts to Zion, the Arrowhead Gallery, Southern Utah Landscape Photographers, and other national and international organizations such as the ILCP (International League of Conservation Photographers). You can see some of his portfolio of photos for sale online at iStock/Getty Images as well as Fine Art America and other sites. See: https://2-robert-ford.pixels.com or geobobford.com
Artist Statement
I started using photography first for fun, while my wife Karen and I were teaching English-as-a-Foreign Language in Japan in the early 1970s. Then later, while doing field research in Africa for my PhD in Geography, with the University of California, Riverside, I found photography to be an essential tool in documenting my work which was focused on studying how local peoples in Burkina Faso and Mali, adapted (or not) to the Great Sahelian Drought of 1968-73 in West Africa.
I have continued even in retirement to focus on landscape, geoscience, and travel photography, using the methodology known as "geotourism" as defined by the National Geographic Society. See: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/topic/geotourism
"GEOTOURISM is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the distinctive geographical character of a place—its environment, heritage, aesthetics, culture, and the well-being of its residents".
I hope you enjoy my photography, and use it not only to document your life and work, but to promote good sustainable living, wherever you call home!
