Thank you for visiting me here. I am a writer, former lawyer, and musician who lives in Sheffield, Alabama.  (Where my mother grew up, and where my grandparents lived.)

My chief work focus these days is management of the Robert Riger Living Trust. (I’m the trustee.)  I took over the … “collection”? “archive”? … in essence the jumble of brilliant sports photography and art that Robert left at the time of his death. I consolidated it all just before the pandemic.  And now – beyond organizing the jumble – I try to figure out the wild “sports collectibles” market, which oddly includes fine art photography.  (A new page on the Trust’s progress and issues involved upcoming.)

I am deeply grateful to some talented people who have begun to help me get my brain around the whole thing.  We focus on digitizing the 90,000+ negatives, B&W and color, to get the images out into the world, and to present to potential buyers. We began with classic football and baseball (theoretically the most saleable).  Some basketball and Formula One.  But the current “sports markets,” organized along the lines of baseball card sales, and trading conventions, and WEIRD authentication practices  have worked to devalue the monetary value of Robert’s work.  For now.  I work to promote the artistic value of his work.  A sort of heresy in the worlds of both “sports journalism photography” and fine arts photography.

In anticipation of the buzz surrounding the 2028 Summer Games in LA, I had been excited to work toward organization of his extensive cache of Olympic photography.  Robert shot Olympic Games, winter and summer, from 1956 to 1992.  He shot especially lovely images at the 1984 Summer Olympics, the last time the games were in Los Angeles.  But current US politics begin to make it likely that many countries will feel uncomfortable trusting their elite athletes to our care.  And we know how the administration feels about Los Angeles.

All these things said, the work continues. The archive exists in a beautiful space just off Spring Park in Tuscumbia, and I work steadily to get images digitized and organized.  My instagram posts give a curated sense of the vast range of Robert’s work.  His website: robertriger.com.

I continue to work on my own writing.  I have several projects in the works but don’t like to talk about them. Jinx! I’m trying to talk my daughter into working with me on a book about Robert, her dad, with previously unpublished or even unprinted images of his work. Perhaps a book on classic images from Ebbets Field? A couple of pages on this site reflect some of MY work I published in the day.

As always, thanks for your interest and for your time. I’d love to hear from you with any reactions or suggestions you might have.