Meet Robert Erving Potter III of REP3 and The Potter School of Photography

Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Erving Potter III.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Robert Erving. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up on a farm, I may live in the city now, but I’m a farm boy at heart.

I had undiagnosed dyslexia as a child so creating images became very important to me at an early age. In kindergarten Look, LIFE, Vogue, and National Geographic were my favorite magazines. Encouraged by my fourth-grade teacher, I started a camera club and developed my first roll of film. I was hooked! The magic of photography entered my life. During this time, my mom instilled a great love of art in me. She would take me to the Art Institute of Chicago and ask me to name the painters in the museum while she held her hand over the nameplate of each painting. I was quickly taken by the impressionists and the Dutch painters of the Golden Era. The Dutch Masters for their keen eye and observation of light and shadow and the Impressionists for their ability to capture the nuances of light and its effect on color.

At the suggestion of my mother, I applied for a scholarship with Interlochen Arts Academy and I submitted a book, a collection of poems, illustrated with my best black and white photographs. I was awarded a partial scholarship to Interlochen and was gifted my first 35mm SLR camera from W. Clement Stone. I would round out my senior year as a photographer of the school yearbook, “d’Art’.

My mentor from Valpo, George Strimbu, introduced me to Doris O’Neal, at that time the Curator of Photography at LIFE Magazine, at an exhibit of photos at Valpo. I shot the event and spent the night making prints to show Doris before she left in the morning. Doing so landed me an apprenticeship at LIFE under the hand of Alfred Eisenstaedt who taught me the most important asset to a photographer. “Never, ever, go anywhere without a camera”. Under Eisenstaedt’s direction, I studied under Cornell Capa at the International Center of Photography. At Cornell’s suggestion would soon join the ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) and maintain membership in that organization to this day. One of the best career decisions I’ve ever made.

During these early years in Chicago, the early 80’s, I began working in an area that is dear to my heart, theatre. I became ‘the’ photographer for the first Chicago publication specifically for the theatre community, the “Chicago Theatre Journal” and also worked as the part-time box office manager at ‘Second City’. I quickly became Joyce Sloane’s, the producer of Second City at the time, favorite photographer. My run as the ‘house photographer’ would last 10 years and secured my reputation as one of the top headshot photographers in Chicago.

In 2004, I was invited to help found the Piccolo Theatre and am pleased that our theatre company is alive and thriving today! Please come to one of our shows!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think most artists when they are starting out, are ‘starving’ and none of us live in the best of neighborhoods. I remember living in Wicker Park and then Humboldt Park well before the gentrification of either of those ‘hoods’ took place. You could rent a huge apartment for a few hundred a month and I would use the entire apartment as a studio. I placed a mattress in the largest closet and I called that my ‘bedroom’. Everything and I mean everything, revolved around photography.

But, inexpensive housing has its own price. I was robbed at gunpoint multiple times, had a van torched by the local gangs for not ‘moving out’ and I am still extremely vigilant and ‘situationally aware’ to this day. Of course, that ‘hyper-vigilance’ allows me to see things, action, other photographers might miss!

Balancing passion and profession is the biggest challenge. I would live in the moment creating images or mentoring others in image creation all day long, every day if I could. But to run a small business you need to be a “small business owner” and wear many hats. HR, PR, billing and receivables, market development and, oh yes, the dreaded accounting and tax preparation!

Marketing myself, self-promotion, has always been difficult for me. How does one tell the world what they do, and how well they do it, without sounding boastful or self-important? And, it’s not always easy letting your images speak for themselves if you have no way of getting them in front of buyers. I guess I have a hard time ‘tooting’ my own horn.

Making the switch film to digital was a huge learning curve. I lamented trading in my Leica film cameras and darkroom for one, just one, digital SLR and a computer. I’m over it now and fully embrace the ever-changing world of digital image creation where nearly anything is possible.

Of course, I do teach an awesome class in iPhone photography!

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My mission is to enrich lives through the arts.

The business has two divisions, “REP3 Photography” (image creation and manipulation) and the Potter School of Photography.

In image creation, I am most fond of my days shooting actors at Second City. That venue introduced me to so many talented artists and I captured their personalities on film. Bonnie Hunt once told me my shot of her was the last she ever needed and my shot of Chris Farley landed on the desk of Lorne Michaels at SNL. Chris and I became great friends before he left for New York and I miss him to this day.

My mission with the Potter School of Photography is to create a safe place where creativity, understanding, and the adventure of life collide into the courageous expression of ‘self’ through visual imagery. Teaching how the tools of technology can empower the person behind the camera thus leading to a lifetime of insight, awareness, and self-discovery.

Yes, we teach the ‘basics’ but there are no “set” classes like ‘photo 101’. Each private, or semi-private, lesson is tailor-made to the needs of each student. Typically, the instructor comes to the student or the class is held ‘on location’. In-home classes typically focus on the use of one’s personal computer (Mac) or other technology to curate and edit images, how to archive and preserve and safeguard one’s work. Classes may include Photoshop, Lightroom, how to build and configure basic network storage facilities, Dropbox, etc.

What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes
Currently, working on overcoming my fear of self-promotion and, thereby, launching two new websites at the first of the year, a new site for each of our businesses, ‘REP3.com’ and ‘potterschoolofphotography.com’. We’re also finalizing plans to offer my nearly 50 years of photography for sale online. This is an overwhelming task as I have hundreds of thousands of images and that’s just the digital product. The majority of my life’s work is still on film!

For the school, we are planning more ‘adventurous’ location classes. Not necessarily ‘out of this world’ but definitely international. Keep your passport and camera at the ready!

We will continue to put on shows at Piccolo and if you’re feeling a bit risqué, and want to learn how to capture those images, you can book a behind-the-scenes, private lesson at the Kiss Kiss Cabaret burlesque show…! Oh my…!

Contact Info:

• Address: 8644 Skokie Blvd Unit 202
• Website: www.rep3.com
• Phone: 3122262060
• Email: potter@rep3.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Robert.Erving.Potter.III.REP3
• Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-er

Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.