Rob Hornstra
Rob Hornstra studied Social and Legal Services at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences from 1994 to 1998. From 1999 to 2004 he studied photographic design at Utrecht School of the Arts.
Since graduation Hornstra has combined editorial work for newspapers and magazines with more personal, longer-term documentary work in the Netherlands, Iceland, and the former Soviet Union. Hornstra considers himself a maker of photographic documentaries rather than a photographer; when not photographing for a particular purpose, he does not carry a camera. Further, he sees books as more important than exhibitions, and regards his own editing, publication and marketing of books of his photography as an important part of his work.
Starting with his first collection, Communism and Cowgirls, Hornstra has published his
own books. These skip forewords by other writers, biographical notes, ISBNs and the other trappings of conventionally published books; by taking advance orders and selling copies directly and also working through a small number of retailers, Hornstra is able to avoid normal distribution channels.
Together with the writer and filmmaker Arnold van Bruggen, in 2009 Hornstra started the Sochi Project,
which over five years would document the area of Sochi (Krasnodar Krai, Russia) and the changes to it
during the preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
www.borotov.nl