Digital Image Cafe Photographer Profile
Bob Jones - Wales

From times of great joy to years of difficult challenges, photography has been an important part of the life of Robert Jones.

A farm boy from North Wales, he joined the British Army nearly 45 years ago at the age of 15. There he trained as a household chef, while also learning photography as a second trade. He served all over Europe and the Far East in general's households, large officers messes and, occasionally, as a conference chef catering for general staff officers, visiting dignitaries, and members of the European and British royal families. "During these years, photography was a hobby with the occasional assignment taking sports photographs for the various regiments in which I served," says Bob.

But, then, tragedy struck and Bob was involved in an incident which broke his spine. He left the Army and went through 5 major operations which left him in a wheelchair for three years. Seven years of recuperation followed. During that time, he still enjoyed photography. He busied himself by taking pictures and cataloguing the various species and subspecies of cacti and succulents of which he had a large collection, and he was rewarded with publication in various specialist magazines. "Certainly were it not for the injury, I would have not embraced photography wholeheartedly," explains Bob.

These days, Bob does contract work for several sports studios and travels all over the British Isles taking pictures of sports events. He now spends long days in show rings photographing horse and rider, dodging flailing hoofs, and maneuvering to avoid wayward equestrians. "Sometimes starting at 7am and not finishing until midnight, with the help of strong coffee and the occasional pain relief medication, I think I can still manage a good days work," Bob reveals. He mainly shoots show jumping, but also MotoX, rugby, fell and mountain races, motorcycle trials, ice skating, hunter trials, fox hunting, and cricket matches. His pictures have been published widely in many sports related magazines.

Bob declares, "When the digital era arrived, I readily sold my Olympus 35mm cameras and equipment and embraced this new technology." He has owned several digital cameras but finally settled on Canon as he felt this would give him the best range of lenses to choose from. "This choice proved correct as I feel they are now leading the field in digital technology," adds Bob. He admires Peter Watson, an English landscape photographer, Andy Rouse, the wildlife photographer, and Cecil Beaton the sixties fashion photographer, and American photographer David Muench.

A father of three sons, Bob now lives in a seaside Welsh town, but loves to travel and has seen most of Europe and some areas of the Far East. With his wife of thirty eight years, he now holidays in North Africa whenever he can. "My wife and I have a love affair with the Sahara and the people of that region," he says. In fact, they are going back to the Sinai in March and are planning a trip to Libya later in 2007. They are anxious to see the Mountains of Akakus where there are spectacular rock formations and some of the oldest primitive rock paintings in North Africa (dating back some 10,000 years). They also wish to experience the life of the tribes' people of this region like the Tuareg and the Berbers.

Bob has been an avid participant at the Digital Image Cafe. "It has been fun watching the Cafe evolve to what it is now and I derive great pleasure from my membership. I have a great respect for the photographers at the cafe, some of which were an inspiration to me at the now defunct DigitalPhotoContest site. It amazes me every time I get a Picture of the Day with such great talent the members display, every day, on the front page," he concludes.