AMERICAN LANDSCAPE GALLERY

Collected Works of Richard Olsenius

My name is Richard Olsenius. I have worked for over 50 years as a photographer, film-maker and music composer. As a contributing photographer and photo editor for National Geographic Magazine for 35 of those years, I have tried to bring a unique and intimate perspective to the people and places of the American landscape and the world around me.

American Landscape Gallery is committed to telling the stories created by many different landscapes and to remembering those events that have impacted our world.

My photographic career has centered on interpreting landscapes; social and political, as well as geographical. Landscapes have multiple stories to tell. While I have photographed the American West and Canadian parks, I have also covered the anti-war demonstrations of the 1960’s and the white flight from our urban communities during the Civil Rights struggle. And in the late 1970’s I covered the impacts of social and political upheaval in Cambodia that resulted in one of the 20th Century’s worst instances of genocide. Shadows in the Sun is the photographic story of that landscape of tragedy and the international humanitarian effort to address it.