Beyond The Lens

Photographer Frans Lanting has spent decades capturing the Earth’s diverse wildlife and landscapes, weaving a personal visual narrative that highlights both the beauty and the fragility of our planet.

Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, his work has led him across the globe, from the lush rainforests of the Amazon to the stark wilderness of Antarctica. Throughout his career, Lanting has been recognized with numerous accolades, so...

Jay Silverman is an award winning director, producer, filmmaker, writer, and photographer from Santa Monica, California.

Jay’s films have been awarded numerous Best Feature and Audience Awards at festivals across the country, along with being honored with Belding, Telly, Promax, and Lucy Awards for his commercial work.  In addition, he has also been recognized for his achievements in creating and producing many national PS...

George Nobechi is a Japanese-Canadian photographer living in Nagano, Japan. His work is often described as evoking solitude, duality and longing.  Being bicultural, he is simultaneously an insider and outsider in both Eastern and Western cultures and this is reflected in his sensibility and vision.

Topics Richard and George discuss:

• Japanese and Canadian cultures
• Working with Sam Abell
• The concept of...

Guy Tal is an American  nature and landscape photographer, the author of several books, a regular contributor to photography publications such as LensWork and On Landscape, a prolific blogger, and educator. He resides in Torrey, Utah.

Guy primarily photographs and writes about the Colorado Plateau in the American Southwest. He describes himself as a self-expressive artist who uses the camera to capture images of the wilder...

Matt Richtel is a Pulitzer Prize winning  New York Times  writer and journalist from San Francisco, USA. He's also the author of ten books, including New York Times best selling  A Deadly Wandering and Inspire: Understanding Creativity. A Journey Through Art, Science, and the Soul which addresses  the science of creativity. 

Matt  obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an...

Art Wolfe is an American nature, wildlife, and cultural photographer who travels the world leading photography workshops and creating award-winning images for his dozens of books. His photography career spans five decades and covers every continent on Earth.

Art graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in fine art and art education. Art is the proud recipient of the Nature’s Best Photographer of the Year Award, the N...

Matthieu Paley is a French photographer who has traveled the world working for National Geographic magazine. Focusing his efforts on regions that are misrepresented and misunderstood, he is committed to issues relating to diminishing cultures and the environment.

Matthieu is the the recipient of numerous awards and has published several books of his work and his fine art images have been exhibited in galleries worldwide, including m...

Rick Sammon is an American photographer of many decades. He's a tireless, prolific and inspirational image maker and one of the most active photographers working today. He divides his time between creating images, leading photo workshops, making personal appearances, and writing books - always educating, creating and inspiring people. He's also incorporated smartphone photography into his professional work, which is the p...

Peter Gros and Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant are hosts of the new Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom Protecting The Wild’ TV show airing on NBC, which is the successor to the classic Wild Kingdom that aired on the same network from 1963 – 1988. Peter Gros was a host from the original series during episodes in the 1980s and Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant is a National Geographic Explorer and research faculty member at the University of California – Santa Bar...

John Stanmeyer is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and educator, dedicated to social, humanitarian, and political issues that define our times. For more than than 20 years, John has worked nearly exclusively with National Geographic Magazine, producing more than 18 stories, resulting in more than 14 covers. Between the years of 1998 and 2008, John was a contract photographer for TIME magazine. His years with TIME resulted ...

Dr. Tom Smith is  a professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah where he studies human-wildlife conflicts, particularly involving all three species of North American bears and mountain sheep.  He also worked with the United States government in southwestern Alaska where he served from 1992-2006 as a research biologist for the National Park Service  and USGS.

Topics Richard and Dr. Smith discuss:

• Precaut...

Mike Olbinski is a Phoenix, Arizona-based storm chasing and extreme weather photographer and cinematographer.  His passion is capturing extreme weather events like tornados, haboobs, supercells, and lightning events on camera and stunning cinematic time lapse videos. 

Topics Richard and Mike discuss:

• A Texas tornado that was one of Mike's 2023 highlights
• What is an haboob and how are they created?
• Mike's career-...

This episode was recorded with my friend, Matt Payne as we made a wild crossing of the Drake Passage last month.  We were returning to Ushuaia, Argentina after a 21-day voyage to Antarctica where we encountered amazing scenery and wildlife, including the "impossible" emperor penguin on ice flows in the Weddell Sea.

This was an unscripted, unstructured conversation where we essentially interviewed each other. I wa...

Ami Vitale is a National Geographic photographer, Nikon Ambassador, writer, speaker and documentary filmmaker.

She's a traveler to more than 100 countries and the recipient of numerous awards for her photography, including Magazine Photographer & International Photographer of the Year, the Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Reporting, and  a six-time award recipient from World Press Photos.

Ami is also a founder of...

Hanne Strager is a Danish  biologist, whale researcher, and author of the award-winning book, The Killer Whale Journals: Our Love and Fear of Orcas and A Modest Genius: The Story of Darwin’s Life and How His Ideas Changed Everything. Hanne co-founded Norway's Andenes Whale Center and has served as the Director of Exhibitions at the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

In this episode, Hanne and Richard talk about her ne...

William Neill is an American landscape and nature photographer, writer and teacher.  He’s been a resident of the Yosemite National Park area since 1977, and his award-winning photography has been widely published in books, magazines, calendars, posters, and his limited-edition prints. For about 30 years, William wrote a monthly column in Outdoor Photographer magazine.

The conversation this episode focuses on William's...

In this episode, we talk branding, influencers, gaining and working with corporate sponsors, marketing, and social media for photographers and artists. What is branding and what isn't?  How important is consistency and authenticity? What should photographers do and not do on social media? How to market yourself. Plus a lot more.

Joey Lopez  is the Director of Brand Marketing at Lexar. He launched the Lexar Influencer ...

Will Burrard-Lucas is a British wildlife photographer, best known for innovative camera techniques and devices that allow him to capture unique perspectives on wildlife not usually seen otherwise. He's the founder of Camtraptions, a company specializing in creative technology and photographic contraptions, including the Beetlecam and his own camera traps.

Will has published three books,  The Ethiopian Wolf: Hope at th...

Terry White is a 27-year veteran at Adobe, Inc.  He currently holds the prestigious title of Principal Director, Creative Cloud Evangelist with a focus on photography.

Terry’s an award winning portrait and travel photographer who in 2016, was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. He’s delivered live keynote presentations at Adobe MAX, Photoshop World, and gave a TED talk titled AI Is Here.

He has a very popul...