Richard was born in 1979, in Hastings, New Zealand. In 1999 he graduated from UNITEC/EIT with a Bachelor of Business with Marketing, and in 2003 graduated from Wellington's Massey University with a Bachelor of Design, majoring in Visual Communication Studies.

Richard works as an educator, mentor and judge for photographic industry professionals around the world. Richard is also an educator at 'The Portrait Masters, an online platform based out of the US.

Richard's career outside of a photographic educator is based in the corporate/advertising genre and specialised portraiture. Richard has also worked in other creative fields such as over seeing set design for the Festival Opera, Judging the New Zealand Edible Fashion Awards and giving creative/art direction to many New Zealand advertising campaigns.

Richard is a Grand Master of the NZIPP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography) where he has also been awarded the title of 'New Zealand Professional Photographer of the Year' four times, most recently in 2021. In 2020 Richard was the Creative Grand Award Winner at WPPI in Las Vegas and in 2021 was the Grand Award (overall winner) of the Asia Pacific Photographic Awards. These accolades head the long list of titles and awards received from organisations and competitions around the world.