Photographer George Rose has traveled a long and winding road through the elite world of popular music, film and sports — eventually leading him to Northern California’s Wine Country. During a prolific 17-year career as a photojournalist in Los Angeles in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Rose developed a remarkable and historic body of photographic work focused on popular culture.

In the late 1970s, Rose served six years as a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. His independent assignments, focused primarily on the entertainment industry, have been published in USA Today, Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone. Images from this era are collected in the 2008 book entitled Hollywood, Beverly Hills & Other Perversities published by Ten Speed Press.

From 1982 to 1996 Rose prowled the sidelines of the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders games as a photographer for the National Football League. Thousands of these images have been published in officially sanctioned NFL books, calendars, trading card and game day programs.

In the 1980s, Rose headed north to Ukiah, where he owned and published the Mendocino Grapevine, an award-winning Northern California weekly county newspaper. It was during this period that he became friendly with the Fetzer family (owners of Fetzer Vineyards), planting the seeds of a future career in wine. Despite the rigors of publishing, Rose maintained his close relationship with USA Today and a handful of other national publications throughout the 1980s.

For the past eighteen years, Rose has held three high-level public relations positions in Northern California’s Wine Country. He began his wine journey — though some might call it a “career detour” — by becoming Director of Public Relations at Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards in 1991. In 1998 he moved forty-five minutes down Highway 101 to Sonoma County, where he took on duties as Public Relations Director for Clos du Bois and its parent wine company, Allied Domecq Wines USA.

In 2003, wine maverick Jess Jackson tapped Rose to become Vice President of Public Relations for Kendall-Jackson, America’s top premium wine producer. Rose was responsible for all Kendall-Jackson communications until his departure at the end of 2008.

Rose is a recipient of a 1987 World Press Photo Award for news, and was named California “Newspaper Photographer of the Year” in 1976 by the University of Missouri, School of Journalism. He was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize by the Los Angeles Times.

Rose currently sustains his love of photography by documenting the seasonal changes in California’s wine country and traveling the world as a contributor to Getty Images. His vineyard photos have been used in numerous publications and calendars within the world of wine, and in 2007, Chronicle Books published a collection of those images in a book entitled “The Art of Terroir.”

Rose’s entire body of celebrity and sports photography is now available through www.gettyimages.com.

Many of his images are also available as fine art photography prints directly from the photographer.

To contact George directly, click here.

The GEORGEROSE.COM website offers a sampling of a truly diverse and impressive body of photographic work.
 

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