Award-winning photographer Rob Benchley is a Nantucket washashore who has accrued many credits since moving to the island year-round in 1982. He co-authored Scallop Season: A Nantucket Chronicle with Jim Patrick, and has been a photographer and writer for five Nantucket publications since 1983, including: the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, the Nantucket Beacon, the Nantucket Independent and the original Nantucket Magazine. In recent years, Rob has contributed his photographs and essays to Nantucket Today, a magazine publication of the Inquirer & Mirror.
His other book credits include Peter Brace’s Walking Nantucket (Faraway Publishing 2003,) Voices of the Village (’Sconset Trust 2002) and Keeping the Light: The Epic Move & Preservation of Nantucket's Sankaty Head Lighthouse (‘Sconset Trust 2009.) In 2021 he collaborated with author Richard Trust for Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America: ’Sconset. Film credits include narrator for filmmaker John Stanton’s 2016 documentary “The Last Bay Scallop?” and Penny Dey’s 2023 short film “Lost in Nevers Land” about the yet-unsolved disappearance of Dr. Margaret Kilcoyne in 1980.
A retired ‘Sconset volunteer firefighter and former vice president of the Siasconset Civic Association, Rob serves as an advisor to the Historic District Commission and is an elected member of the Nantucket Water Commission. Perhaps fulfilling a dream he never knew he had, he is now the civilian Keeper of the Sankaty Head Lighthouse, which has been privately owned by the ‘Sconset Trust since 2007. He and his wife Carol share their ‘Sconset house they built together 35 years ago.
