Rob Mattson (b. 1976) is a Denver-based freelance photographer and photojournalist who is working from the ground up to find success in freelance after years as a staff photojournalist.
Rob met his wife, Amelia, in 1999 while attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. He proposed in 2003, just before taking her to Vienna, Austria to celebrate. The two married in 2004 at a historic mansion in downtown Denver, Colorado. Three and a half years later, Amelia gave birth to their son, Henry Charles Mattson (b. June 30, 2008), and the happy couple hasn’t stopped smiling since that wonderful morning.
Mattson grew up in southern California, Kansas and Louisiana, and spent his adolescent years in Texas. During college at CU, he did work for Liaison, Sipa Press, Rolling Stone, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Rocky Mountain News, and completed photojournalism internships at the Albuquerque Journal, Indianapolis Star, Kalamazoo Gazette and Sun Publications, topping it off with a photo editing internship at the Boulder Daily Camera.
His career would have been slow to start had it not been for dedicated high school photo teacher Mark Murray (the best guy in the world) and Ron Ennis, a former picture editor and current staffer at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The men above shaped the life of a budding 15 year old kid who liked making photographs, and relied on kindness of his mother to get to and from assignments all over the Dallas metroplex. Mattson eventually grew up, went to college, receiving additional inspiration and direction from CU professor Kevin Moloney (see also Krisanne Johnson, Chip Litherland, Tomas Van Houtryve, Peter Lockley, Matt Nager, Matt Slaby, Kat Cook, and the list goes on, and on), and finished in 2001, taking a job soon thereafter.
As a staffer, Mattson began his career at the Courier News in Elgin, Illinois, where he earned the Illinois Press Photographers Association Clip Photographer of the Year award in just over nine months. One year later, Mattson accepted a position at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, but left after five and a half years of visual storytelling to help care for ill family back home in Denver.
Currently, Mattson works as a hub loadmaster and ramp agent for Frontier Airlines. It’s not glamorous, especially since it required a 65% cut in pay, but the j-o-b equates to income, which is always great, healthcare, free domestic travel, and super-cheap international travel.
Give a shout if you have an assignment, or just want to relax and shop-talk over a cold Colorado microbrew. Coffee always works, too.
