Hello Substack!

I’m a professional photographer and an expert at photo editing (i.e. processing) and printing. I also teach photography. My goal is to help other photographers “learn to see” and increase their vision, understand the medium, and provide proven, real-world solutions to the many challenges we encounter in photography. 

I’m not interested in tricks or gimmicks, but in real solutions that actually work. Tricks and gimmicks eventually fail, and can cause you to lose interest in photography.  But learning to understand the craft and the tools gives you a foundation to enjoy photography for a lifetime. 

Photography has limitless room for growth and learning. I learn new things every day, and it keeps me engaged and interested in the art.

My personal interest is in landscape and fine art photography, as you can see from the photos on my website, RichSeiling.com.

I’ve always been interested in making prints because of how they express a photograph, and a photo doesn’t seem as “real” to me until it is printed. I am obsessed with pushing the process of photo editing and printing to new heights to make more expressive photographs that people can enjoy. 

Professionally, I have worked for the National Park Service as a documentary photographer, and have been published in numerous publications including USA Today. FujiFilm has used my prints to promote the quality of their photo papers. I’ve also written numerous articles for magazines and websites. I’ve been teaching photography for over 25 years, and offer in-person workshops around the country with leading workshop programs.

I lived in Yosemite National Park for three years, where I worked at The Ansel Adams Gallery as an assistant curator. My passion for printing led me to found one of the first all-digital fine art photo labs, West Coast Imaging, in 1997. Our studio was located just outside Yosemite National Park. For nearly twenty years, I and my team worked with the top names in nature photography, producing numerous museum exhibitions and helping galleries stay stocked with prints. Changes in the market led me to sell WCI in 2017. 

I now teach photography and pursue a wide range of photographic projects, and am always working to get the most expressive results from photographs and raise the bar on fine art printing. 

This substack is a place to share that experience and my ongoing adventures—with the goal of helping you learn to be a better photographer and learn how to get more reward from your efforts. I’ll share with you the thought process, tools, and approaches I use in my own photography and with my professional clients.

In working with nearly 20,000 photographers, I’ve learned that every photographer has a unique story to tell. I want to help you unlock the ability to tell them. I believe in the power of photography to tell unique stories and reveal truths about our world. 

I hope this substack inspires you with the many ways the craft of photography can tell those stories with more vision, greater clarity, and the amazing depth the medium is capable of capturing.