The great photographers know that the most important thing about their craft often involves being in the right place at the right time. Robert Capa knew it. Alfred Eisenstaedt knew it. Walter Iooss Jr. knows it. And so does Bob Horsch.
So when Horsch woke up on the morning of Sept. 8, 1998, he just knew he had to be in St. Louis that night. The Cubs were playing the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, Steve Trachsel was on the mound for Chicago and mammoth Mark McGwire was sitting on 61 homers and going for the record.
So Horsch grabbed his camera, got in his car, drove from his home in Orland Park to St. Louis, bought a $250 ticket from a broker and was in the house the night McGwire made baseball history with his 62nd dinger.
Horsch got the shots he wanted and drove back home after the game, arriving at 4 a.m. so he could open his store at Woodfield six hours later. Two days later the photos were developed, framed, matted and for sale.
The only bad part of the historic evening?
“When I stood on my seat to get the shots of McGwire rounding the bases, somebody threw a half-eaten hot dog at me and beaned me,” he said with a laugh. “It’s an occupational hazard, I guess. I was at the (Chicago) Stadium in 1992 the night the Bulls won their second title, and I got knocked off my chair three times.”
Horsch is one of the lucky ones. Millions of people dream about turning their hobby into a career. That’s exactly what Horsch did. And all the evidence of Horsch being in the right places at the right times is festooning the walls of his galleries at 30 S. Michigan Ave., across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago, and at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg. Horsch specializes in framed and unframed Chicago scenes and sports photos of players and stadiums. Prices range from $20 for unframed photos to $250 for framed pieces.
Considering his original business goals, Horsch said he has surpassed his wildest dreams. On the other hand, he also said he thought his idea could potentially take off in a big way.
“Chicago is a big tourist center, of course, and people come here from all over the world. Chicago is such a beautiful city, and people want to take a memory home with them,” he said. “With conventions, lakefront events, sports events, people come in and out of the city in droves. And two of the places many people end up are Michigan Avenue and Woodfield.”
Along with the two galleries filled with photos, Horsch and his wife of 25 years, Linda, also have a thriving corporate business, decorating offices for companies such as Motorola, AT&T, Allstate Insurance Co., Uptown Federal, ABC-TV and Wendy’s Restaurants. Though he wouldn’t reveal financial figures, Horsch estimated that business has doubled in the last two years.
Chuck Hrebic, president of Fire Protection Co. in Alsip, has purchased a number of Horsch photos over the years.
“I remodeled my office with a sports theme, and I have Bob’s photos of Michael Jordan against Dennis Rodman when he was a Piston, the Bears’ `Fog Bowl’ game, Wrigley Field’s opening night. Bob’s pictures have a neat twist to them,” he said. “I also have photos of all the Chicago stadiums and some beautiful city stuff. I get lots of positive comments too. People love Bob’s work.”
Becoming a small business success has also been fun for Linda Horsch, who used to work as a school teacher.
“When we first started out at art fairs, we had a lot of repeat customers, and I thought that was a good sign,” she said. “It’s really been great over the years, and I especially enjoy working with people, helping them decorate with Bob’s photos. Sometimes I see Bob as an ambassador for Chicago. His pictures are hanging on walls literally all over the world. We’ve decorated offices in Germany, Italy, Japan and Poland. A Chicago-style pizza place in London has bought Bob’s pictures. Just the other day a man from Australia came into the Michigan Avenue store and bought a Luc Longley photo. It’s something to be proud of.”
Horsch, 54, grew up on Chicago’s South Side in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. He lived and died with the 1959 pennant-winning White Sox of Nellie Fox and Minnie Minoso and Sherman Lollar. He played basketball and baseball at De La Salle High School, Class of 1963.
Photography? Horsch didn’t become a photographer until after high school. He served in Vietnam, and he bought a camera while on R&R in Japan.
“I realized early on how much I loved photography,” he said. “I took a lot of photos of people, nature, anything that interested me. I still have those photos.”
When Horsch returned to the States, he became a photo assistant for a wedding photographer to earn a few extra bucks while working full time as a union electrician. In his spare time, he’d take his camera and walk around Chicago or drive out to the countryside for some nature shots, shooting roll after roll of film.
“I never took any classes or anything like that,” he said. “I’d read a lot about photography, experiment, take notes on every picture I took, ask questions of people who knew what they were doing. I just kept working at it.”
In 1972 Horsch went to his first art fair.
“I was the only photographer there, but people seemed to like my work, so I started going to more of them,” he said. “I won some ribbons, made a few bucks and started to carve a niche, generate some decent sales.”
Then Horsch read a book by famed nature photographer Ansel Adams.
“The biggest thing I learned was the importance of specializing,” he said. “So I started doing aerial photos of Chicago, and people were lining up at the Gold Coast Art Fair to buy them. That’s when I began to concentrate on Chicago scenes and sports photos.”
Horsch opened his first store on Wells Street in Old Town in 1983. He moved his Chicago operation to Michigan Avenue in 1991, and he opened his second store, in Woodfield, in 1997.
“I didn’t jump into this overnight,” he said. “I gradually expanded, and it became something that just happened. When I was working as an electrician, there were no guarantees, and it’s the same thing for a small businessman. I always thought that if this fell through, I could put down the camera and pick up the tools again.”
A visit to one of Horsch’s stores is like a walking tour of Chicago, or a trip down Chicago sports memory lane. City scenes include Navy Pier, the Chicago Theatre, the Board of Trade, Burnham Harbor and the Water Tower. There are also plenty of skyline shots from the air or from the lake. There are photos from all four seasons of the year.
Sports photos include, yes, Michael Jordan. There’s Jordan in a Bulls uniform. Hey, now he’s in a White Sox uniform. There’s Jordan at Grant Park with a trophy, Jordan driving on the New York Knicks’ Patrick Ewing, Jordan flashing a winning smile, Jordan chatting with his pal Charles Barkley of the Phoenix Suns, Jordan as a statue outside the United Center.
There’s also a wide selection of White Sox, Cubs, Bears and Blackhawks photos, along with shots of the United Center, old Chicago Stadium, old and new Comiskey Park, Soldier Field and Wrigley Field on Aug. 8, 1988, at the first night game. He even has a few McGwire, Notre Dame and Green Bay Packer photos. There are also Big 10 football stadium aerial shots.
One Saturday he flew in a Cessna and photographed the stadiums at Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue all in the same day. When the World Cup opening ceremonies and kickoff game between Germany and Bolivia were held in Chicago in 1994, Horsch had photos available the next day.
About 95 percent of the photos hanging on the walls of his galleries are Horsch photos. Occasionally he’ll purchase other photos, such as the Wrigley Field scoreboard from Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game last season and some 1960s action photos of the Bulls and Blackhawks.
Horsch doesn’t go to all the games, as some people might think.
“I go to particular games that are important or where I think something big might happen, like when Mike Ditka returned to Soldier Field to coach the Saints a few years ago,” he said. “And I don’t get a press pass. I buy a ticket like everyone else. Once I get in there, I roam the stadium, look for the right angles. And my 300 mm lens allows me to get on top of the action.”
Horsch was asked to pick his all-time favorite sports photo.
“I have a photo of Michael Jordan dribbling the ball and facing off against Larry Bird. I’d have to say that’s my favorite,” he said. “That was one of the few times I had a photo pass, and I just love the way the two great players are faced off against each other at eye level. This probably isn’t surprising, but Michael Jordan has been my favorite athlete to shoot over the years. I could never get enough pictures of him. I thought I had a lot, then he retired and I wished I had more. Then he came back, but now he’s gone again.”
His favorite city photo is a shot of an old galleon ship from Sheboygan, Wis., on Lake Michigan. Horsch shot it with a fisheye lens with the skyline in the background and calls it “Columbus Discovering Chicago.”
Horsch said the picture was shot more than 20 years ago and that it’s still a top-five seller.
The Horsches have two children, son Jeffrey, 16, a pitcher at Carl Sandburg High School, and daughter Jennifer, 13, a center-fielder on the Orland A’s fast-pitch travel softball team. Horsch said operating his business, spending time with his family and occasionally sleeping fill up most of his time. Oh yeah, he does have a hobby. Photography.
“My days and nights are pretty full,” he said, “but I can always grab my camera at a moment’s notice and go out and take pictures.”
