Jim Richardson is an American
photojournalist working primarily for the National Geographic Society and as a
social documentary photographer recognized for his explorations of small-town
life.
Richardson's first story forNational Geographic magazine appeared in 1984. Since then,
he has become one of the magazine's most productive contemporary contributing
photographers, with more than 20 stories.
Richardson also is a contributing editor
of National Geographic Travelermagazine, where
he has contributed both writing and photographs. He also is a popular speaker
and workshop leader in the U.S. and abroad.
His combined areas of expertise include
volcanoes, agriculture, rivers and aquifers, and the United Kingdom, especially
the people, culture, and
landscape of Scotland, his Scotland, his family's native Cornwall, and the
wider Celtic world.
In May 2004, National
Geographic published
Richardson's color story on the Great Plains alongside a retrospective of his
30 years of social documentary photography of Cuba, Kansas. Richardson's
ongoing photography of Cuba, population 230, has been profiled twice by CBS's Sunday
Morning, first in 1983 and again in 2004.
Richardson's book, High
School USA, a three-year photographic examination of adolescence in
a small-town Kansas high school, is considered a photo documentary classic.
Richardson's audiovisual presentation
about rural life, "Reflections From a Wide Spot in the Road," won the
Crystal AMI Award and toured internationally.
In 2001, ABC News Nightline followed Richardson in the field and
during editing and layout at National Geographic Society headquarters in
Washington, D.C., for a story called "Yellow Journalism: The Making of a
National Geographic Story."
Richardson first began using a camera as
a youngster on his parents' wheat and dairy farm north of Belleville in
north-central Kansas. He began experimenting with his father's second-hand box
camera, photographing the world of the farmstead for display at the Republic
County Fair.
In 1971, he abandoned his psychology
major at Kansas State University to begin a photo internship at the Topeka
(Kansas) Capital-Journal. In the intervening 15 years, Richardson's
work was published in many major publications, ranging from Life and Time to Sports Illustrated and the New
York Times. In 1986, he left a job at The
Denver Post to begin
a full-time freelance career.
Richardson and his wife, Kathy, returned
to Kansas in 1997, having lived 18 years in Denver. They now live in Lindsborg,
Kansas, where they operate Small World: A Gallery of Arts and Ideas on the
town's Main Street.
All images © Jim
Richardson
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