Richard is an award-winning creative media professional, educator and portrait photographer currently based in Dubai, UAE. Growing up in Leeds in the North of England, Richard always dreamed of faraway places. His curiosity for the world inspired him to take a life-changing transatlantic flight after graduating from high school to explore America. Soon after, he established himself in the USA, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Cincinnati's prestigious College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP).
His professional journey has been a seamless blend of three core expertise areas: teaching, creative leadership and photography. The ability to merge these three areas has given him a multidisciplinary edge that allows him to successfully adapt to every given creative challenge in the classroom, in the studio or with a client.
Richard was an Assistant Professor within the Electronic Media Division (now the Media Production Division) at the internationally recognized College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati from 2002 to 2009. During the summers of 2006 and 2007, Richard taught in Germany at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich as part of the "Exploring New Media: Technology, Economics and Communication Sciences" summer program at LMU. While at the University of Cincinnati, Richard was fortunate to win a number of awards from the Broadcast Education Association for his new media work.
After leaving UC, Richard moved to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, CA, where he managed a vibrant team of talented instructional technologists in his role as instructional technology manager. During this time, Richard and his team helped launch the Faculty Innovation Centre inside the William H. Hannon Library, along with developing bespoke technology training sessions to empower LMU faculty to embrace technology within their teaching and research.
Professionally, Richard has led creative technology-driven projects for clients such as Virgin America, Nike and Hulu to name but a few. Projects have included web, print, motion and interactive experiences. In addition, in the creative space, Richard has created several large-scale digital projection design productions for operas in the US and Europe.
In the classroom, he is constantly changing the paradigm for students to learn how to be critical thinkers and creative content producers using today's digital tools. With his camera, he seeks to make the viewer aware of the beauty and details in the places, landscapes and people he shoots. His award-winning portrait photography is described as emotive minimalism, where he seeks to convey a deep connection and engagement with the subject to capture real and raw emotions. His photography work has been published in a number of magazines (both in print and online) and was recently recognized for his portraiture by internationally recognized lens manufacturer Zeiss in their globally recognized photography blog, LensPire.
Richard is also interested in giving back to the creative community. From 2018 until 2023, Richard was a core teammember of the CreativeMornings Dubai Chapter,, where he ran social media and regularly took professional portraits of the monthly speakers. CreativeMornings is a global movement focused on bringing creatives of all disciplines together for monthly creative lectures.
You can learn more about Richard’s academic and creative journey over on LinkedIn.