Renowned Marin photographer Bob Hemstock took a circuitous route to Mill Valley. “I heard the city name of “Mill Valley” for the very first time in Rita Abram’s “Mill Valley” song on the Armed Forces radio station when I was stationed at an American Air Base in Germany in 1970. One year later, upon discharge from the Air Force, a friend suggested I get an apartment in Marin and my new apartment just happened to be in Mill Valley.”
Hemstock was born in Seattle but raised in the Bay Area – “a true West Coast boy,” as he says. “I got my first camera in my teens and taught myself how to develop film and print photos in my basement darkroom. Fifty years later joined the Marin Photo Club which provided many opportunities to learn fine art photography and to show my photos in exhibits around Marin.”
He is back at it again, this time highlighting his creative energy as part of the monthly Mill Valley Artwalk. He’ll be showing his work from July 25th through the end of August, 2025, with the First Tuesday ArtWalk taking place on Tuesday, August 5th from 5:30–7:30pm.
“I got interested in photography as a teenager in San Francisco after my father gave me a 2¼” x 2¼” roll film camera,” he says. “I made a darkroom in my basement and printed my own black & white prints. For the next 50 years I was just doing vacation photography.
But ten years ago, I happened to find myself in The Image Flow in Mill Valley and saw a brochure about their first Cuba Photographic Workshop that was coming up and I immediately sign up! That’s when I experienced for the first time “The Allure of Cuba”.
I’ve been to Cuba three times and Viet Nam once and Southern India once on photographic workshops, but my real education started when I joined the Marin Photo Club nine years ago.
Numerous club photo classes and competitions, field trips and photo show opportunities helped me get to where I am now.
I am an active artist member and volunteer for the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley.
