Photographer Jim Richardson

Photographer Jim Richardson was born in 1947, in Belleville, Kansas in the North Central part of the state. His first experience with a camera was taking pictures of the wheat fields while using a box camera. After he completed high school, he attended Kansas State University. He attended for more than three years and majored in psychology. During his senior year, he decided that he did not want to pursue that career any further and left college.

When he left college, he decided to take a job at the Topeka Capital Journal as an intern photographer. He also worked for the Denver Post where he spent the better part of twenty years. He then moved back to Kansas and resides there still.

Richardson has been a photographer for the National Geographic Society and completed his first photos and story for the National Geographic Magazine in 1984. Since that time, he has completed more than 20 assignments for the magazine. Jim believes that just being a good photographer is not all that matters. He says that if you are going to photograph something, there is a chance that it has been done before. The challenge is to do it differently and better than it has been done in the past. You also need to complete a good story to go along with the photos.

Richardson is a contributing editor for the National Geographic Traveler. His interests vary, and he likes to photograph subjects such as agriculture and volcanoes. He has also completed a documentary about Cuba, Kansas which was filmed for a period of over 20 years. He has also had his work published in Life, Time and the New York Times.