Rob Amberg
Rob Amberg (b. 1947) was born in Washington, DC, in 1947. He moved to Madison County, North Carolina, in 1973 and began what has become his lifetime project—writing and photographing about the evolving culture and environment of his adopted county. This project has resulted in a trilogy of books: Sodom Laurel Album, published in 2002 by UNC Press and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke Univ., The New Road: I-26 and the Footprints of Progress in Appalachia, published in 2009 by the Center for American Places and Columbia College Chicago, and Little Worlds, self-published in 2024.
Amberg has received grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Documentary Studies, the North Carolina Arts Council, the North Carolina Humanities Council and others.
Throughout his career Amberg has done assignment work for non-profit organizations and philanthropic foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, the Pew Partnership for Civic Change and others. His work has been published and exhibited internationally and is in numerous public and private collections, including the 5th printing of the World History of Photography.
In 2003, Amberg had the distinct honor of presenting Sodom Laurel Album at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.