Rich raised a family both as an Attorney and as a manufacturer of medical devices, but his first love has always been the outdoors, photography, fine art, and writing. His graduate degrees in Law, Folklore, and Classical History lend a unique old-world slant to his photographic eye and writings. In the Fine Arts and Art History, a great background for all photographers, he was taught by a graduate student of the great E.H. Gombrich of Cambridge University. In Photography proper, he was trained through college courses, self-teaching and experimentation, and from multi-day workshops tutored by such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Jack Dykinga, and Outdoor Photography contributor Nick Carver among others.

By combining his love of outdoors, long-distance hiking, writing, and photography, Rich discovered a sub- genre called “Trailscape.” The genre resides somewhere between Landscape Photography, and Adventure Photography. Because Trailscape helps to define Rich, the photographer and writer, a little more about it will be helpful.

Trailscape Photography is distinct from Landscape Photography in that lightweight high performance equipment is the norm, along with the fact that Trailscape is almost always photojournalistic. Trails start somewhere and end somewhere and it involves both day and night. For that reason, Trailscape involves the experience of going somewhere day after day, and involves written reflections about the journey along the way. And because the night is a large part of the trail experience, skill in shooting night scenes by starlight is a major component. Trailscape is about serious photographic work done in the context of a long journey involving many days and many nights. Rich’s Pacific Crest Trail work will be titled “150 Days and Nights on the Pacific Crest Trail.”

Landscape Photography, on the other hand demands substantially larger cameras, and tripods that have sufficient weight and bulk to anchor large format cameras to the earth. Most everything about Landscape Photography is heavy, sturdy, and careful: Beautiful images from weighty equipment and deliberate technique. For that reason, much of Landscape Photography is done not too far from the trailhead.

Trailscape differs from Adventure Photography as a matter of degree. Adventure Photography is usually about a particular exotic climb, or an expensive trek (across Antarctica for example). Trailscape, in contrast, is a bit less glamorous, and is often accompanied by solitary days on the trail, food deprivation, long nights listening for predators, and much time for written reflection along the way. In the end, Trailscape is about being in position to capture an image along a wilderness trail, and fitting it into a narrative that takes one through time, space, and the emotional content of a wilderness journey.

In short, Trailscape allows Rich to express and exploit his wilderness experience, photographic expertise, and writing skills in one creative outlet.