Richard Bolger

Richard Bolger’s photographs are instantly recognizable. The pallet and use of natural light as the subject stands out in his minimal cityscapes and landscapes. The painterly quality of these images helps them to establish a timelessness.

Born in NYC, Bolger is a graduate of the State University of NY at Purchase. 

He lives and works in Amsterdam and New York. In his 35+ years making photographs he has published work in various magazines and has done portrait work for different international clients.

Initially drawn to photography via pencil drawing, Bolger began doing photo realist pencil drawings from photos he found in books and magazines as a child.

He then began photographing street scenes around NYC with a 35mm film camera with the intention of making drawings from them. Working in the photo lab and seeing the creative side of printmaking made the drawings seem redundant, so he stopped making these drawings. Yet people kept telling him photography was not an art! 

While studying at SUNY he was fortunate to have some great professors who introduced him to large format view cameras and fine art photography. Creating figured landscapes with a large format camera led to using non silver printing techniques making palladium prints from 8x10” negatives of very high quality.

These works were exhibited in group and solo exhibits during the 1990’s.

Nowadays he is using a Nikon full frame digital camera and doing subtle editing and adjustments to make large scale color prints. 

“The subject matter is always just the life around me. I travel as often as possible to the American southwest, Maine, Japan, New York, and Amsterdam. I am trying to capture the most special light and environments possible in my images. I am currently working on a photo project about Japan."

There will be a book published within the next year..