| About the Photographer |
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His work can be seen at many places of business, many homes and in many resorts. His corporate clients include the City of Ogden, Ogden Visitors and Convention Bureau, Rainbow Gardens, Marriott Hotels, Grizzly Graphics, Amer Sports, Goode Skis, National Ski Patrol, Diamond Peaks Heli Ski Aventures, Descente, DNA, Hot Chillys, Nordica, Head, Tyrolia, Utah Magazines and a Utah billboard campaign, to attract employees to call Utah their home. Richard is currently on a national gallery tour of specific select locations throuhout the country. "The Impact Images National Gallery Tour."
I came to Utah because of the "big view"---the west. It seems that this is one of the few places you can get a kind of expanse that I find fascinating. You can shoot with a wide-angle lens, but that gives a kind of distortion to space. So I started blending pictures together to create a "panoramic photomontage"---big, like the view, but without the wide-angle distortion. I choose my subjects carefully, there has to be something in the scene or the light that creates a passion for me in that special place that I have the spirit to capture & share.
From dawn until early morning, and evening from four o'clock to dusk---these are the dramatic times. These are the times when passion for a place is more easily created. I often go to places I want to photograph without my camera. Sometimes it might be mid-day, or whenever. I jot in my journal that I want to return at a certain time of day, season, year.... I plan photo trips around these, go to places just to photograph them. I'll pack up the SUV and go, sleep in the back, eat out of the cooler, and wake up exactly where I want to be for proper lighting in the photograph. I call this "getting lost," and I like losing myself in big places, like the San Rafael Swell or even in our populated and popular national parks. There are of course, many differences between shooting with a 35mm SLR and a digital SLR. I have turned almost entirely to digital. With digital you are the photo lab. You have the professional and creative control over its output. It is instantaneous. You don't wait for the lab to return the images, you control and feel the whole process without chemicals. You find an incredible freedom with the composition while at the same time protecting an accurate account of your subject. Freedom is an important value to me---one that I treasure.
In this white world that reaches the sky, I found a future just for me. Standing high on a mountainside, I am the ruler of all I see.
The snow is my lover, the sun is her kiss, the wind sings a love song to me. With the wind, the sun and a vast powder run, just like an eagle, I'm free.
For my skis are the things that give me my wings, and my camera makes me an eagle on high.
If you see a track in the power, white snow etched beneath the sky, a man soaring down the mountain, flying through the trees, racing the wind rushing by, look for the skier whose heart's in the clouds, the song in his heart tells you why.
For I am a man with his spirit fulfilled, an eagle who must forever reach for the sky.
For my skis are the things that give me my wings, and my camera makes me an eagle on high. |
These beautifully laid out Hard Bound coffee table books show stunning images of many of Americas most beautiful places and National Parks through Richard's artful eyes. 
