Richard and Christine Olsenius opened the 2017 Schuneman Symposium at Ohio University with a presentation on “Balancing Creativity in a Changing Digital Landscape.” The E. W. Scripps School of Journalism and School of Visual Communication hosted the two-day seminar held on March 28-29. CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL TALK.

With a symposium theme of “Challenging Landscapes”, Richard discussed the many “landscapes” he has traveled in his 40-year search for creative expression as technology challenged traditional forms of photography. With both still and video clips of his work, he analyzed his transitions from newspaper photographer, to independent filmmaker, to book publisher, to National Geographic photographer, editor and web producer and finally to online producer of long form stories. Christine discussed how the changing technology has impacted the creative packaging and marketing of their books, films and online projects over the year.

Richard Olsenius has been invited to be a juror at the 2016 Sienna International Photography Awards, a photo contest with one of the highest numbers of international participants. Last year approximately 15,000 images were submitted to the contest from photographers in over 100 countries. The competition is coordinated by Arts Photo Travel, a non-profit organization based in Italy that creates initiatives aimed at enhancing art, culture, traditions and natural beauty from around the world. Photo selection will take place in June and chosen entries will comprise the “Beyond the Lens” exhibition that will be showcased in various historic venues across the City of Sienna in late October. “I am very pleased to be included in this international photography exhibition whose objectives mirror many of my efforts with AmericanLandscapeGallery.com,” said Olsenius.

Richard Olsenius just finished creating an original music score for the new film, Beautiful Swimmers Revisited, a production by VideoTakes, Inc. and the Bay Journal. The film will be shown during “Chesapeake Week” on Maryland Public Television at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, April 26. It will also be featured at the Environmental Film Festival at the Nation’s Capital on March 19. Olsenius also took the hour-long documentary through post production with his sound design and film grading. This film follows-up on the state of the Chesapeake Bay 40 years after William Warner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Beautiful Swimmers brought the Chesapeake blue crab and watermen culture to national attention.

The Maryland Federation of Arts (MFA) chose Richard Olsenius to serve as the sole judge for the 2016 Focal Point Photography Exhibition, a national competition for fine art and creative photography. With over 700 entries, Olsenius winnowed the field to 79 prints for the month-long exhibit at the MFA Circle Gallery in downtown Annapolis. The diverse and multi-faceted entries included iPhone photos, three-dimensional artwork, street photography and highly constructed imagery. “All the rules are out with photography,” Olsenius said. “The range of work is almost breathtaking. Everyone is taking pictures. What amazes me is in spite of that, and all of the snapshots, is that there’s a serious creative eye looking at the world to record them.” He feels the exhibited prints “… will wake up your senses and keep your eyes open.” The exhibition ran from January 29 through February 27.

This May, Christies of New York held an auction of National Geographic art prints by selected photographers. I had one of my American West images included in this selection which sold during the two-week auction.

I’m excited to announce my new 28-minute video released this Fall and Winter of 2013. I have worked over 5 years collecting imagery along the Chesapeake Bay and just completed my original music score that I created to evoke the mood and character of the seasonal themes this video portrays. I wanted this production to offer a visual-musical meditation on the Bay, giving viewers a different look at familiar territory. It has been filmed with the new HD cameras that makes photography so exciting. Chesapeake Visions makes an excellent gift for Bay lovers. The DVD and BluRay versions will be available directly from AmericanLandscapeGallery.com or purchased at selected Bay gift outlets, Eastport Art Gallery, Amazon.com or as a meditative offering on Apple’s app store. Go to the Store >>>>>

This spring marks the release of my third album of music, American Landscapes, Film Music. Before this I had composed music for my video and still work in the Arctic and along the Great Lakes in Arctic Odyssey and Distant Shores albums. But these compositions are a new and expressive collection of music from my film “Inside Passage.” I have traveled twice now from Seattle to Glacier Bay in Alaska in a small boat. I spend many weeks exploring the rugged coastline that stretches nearly 1200 miles through a twisted maze of channels and fjords that are etched along the West Coast of the United States and Canada. There is no way to describe this experience except through music and imagery and that is now the goal of the American Landscape -Film Music series of which this is volume one. Clip on the iTune label to sample the sounds.

Spectacular photographs of 10 of America’s most beautiful landscapes are now available for purchase on premium Forever stamped cards. The new cards are sold in a booklet of 20 cards with 10 designs. Forever postage is pre-printed, so mailing is easy — or the cards may be saved as a unique collectible set. Customers can purchase them from the online Postal Service store at www.usps.com/shop, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724) or by mail order via the USA Philatelic catalog. The 10 scenic designs depict 13 Mile Woods, New Hampshire; Glacier National Park, Montana; Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming; Hagåtña Bay, Guam; Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Niagara Falls, New York; Nine-Mile Prairie, Nebraska; Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia/Florida; Rio Grande, Texas; and Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. The designs were originally featured on Scenic American Landscapes stamps, issued 1999-2012.

Arctic Odyssey iBook. “For many years I have sought to weave a mix of visual discovery, musical expression and filmmaking. I am finally seeing the day where on a single page, music, photography and video can share a place to weave a story such as this. This award-winning multimedia book in iBook form, showcases the land and people of the Northwest Passage with over 200 photographs, 20 minutes of video and stories about this mystical land. Olsenius narrates his stories abut native lifestyles, harrowing escapes from traveling along the floe edge during the summer breakup of the ice and his journey on the Belvedere, the first American yacht to successfully cross the the Northwest Passage.

This release of Distant Shores as an iBook is something totally new for me and AmericanLandscapeGallery.com. For nearly 26 years I have been writing, photographing, shooting film, then video and composing music to my stories and photography. I’ve tried combining these efforts as the technology blossomed in the 1980’s by producing stories in CD-ROM. You can watch a sailing video or follow a Lake Michigan fisherman. And finally, all of the music or video can be viewed on a large screen TV and sound system via Apple TV. Still, the basic reason for creating Distant Shores as an iBook goes beyond the technology. The story is still the message and transcends the technology. I hope the love I have for these Great Lakes comes through with this iBook experience. For me, it completes an extended journey along these distant shores.

Richard Olsenius, Annapolis photographer, keeps focus after more then four decades as a photojournalist. Full Article.

American Landscape Gallery has completed a new DVD titled, Dog Stories - a beautifully crafted series of stories of people whose lives have been changed forever by their canine-human friendship. The video follows these personal vignettes with moving music and photographic imagery. “I havn’t heard more passionate stories on any other subject I have ever covered, than in the devotion between dogs and their owners,” said writer, photographer, musician Richard Olsenius. Olsenius traveled extensively to explore the dog's evolution as man's best friend. What started originally as a National Geographic Book project, also evolved into a book and now a narrated DVD set to original music. With more than 43-million dog owners in the U.S. today, the connection with our dogs has transcended centuries of evolution and change, resulting in human-canine relationships that ranges from dependent to indulgent. Dog Stories showcases hardworking ranch dogs, airport guard dogs, sportsmen with hunting hounds, and city-dwellers with pampered pooches. The DVD follows the restorative power of therapy dogs on their rounds with hospital patients, assistance dogs who become the lifeline for their human companions, and the story of Sonntag, a disabled German Shepherd whose devoted owner has promised him one last road trip up the Alcan highway.

The Dog Stories DVD is a unique gift where beautiful images, insightful narration and moving music combine to tell touching stories of unconditional friendship.

Stand at the edge of Cape Spear and view the one of the world’s most rugged coastlines. Travel to outports, where small communities perch on wind-swept rocks, weathered by storms and the march of time. Discover the wild beauty of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada’s Place Apart in this new DVD which showcases stunning imagery of coastal landscapes plus the black spruce forests, floating icebergs and the inland, trout-rich, lakes of Labrador, one of Canada’s wilderness regions. The DVD offers a musical and visual journey through both places, one known for is quaint towns and rugged landscape and the other for its large brook trout and iceberg-laden coastline. Canada’s Place Apart if a visual-musical journey through one of the world’s most rugged and beautiful regions.

A set of art prints celebrating the heartland of the American Midwest will become permanent exhibits at two new American embassies overseas. American Landscape Gallery is pleased to announce that the new  Visit This page embassies in Romania and Zambia will showcase the work of photographer, Richard Olsenius, from his In Search of Lake Wobegon series. Developed as part of a project with author, Garrison Keillor to search for his mythical region in central Minnesota, the Lake Wobegon photography appeared first in National Geographic Magazine and then in a book by Keillor and Olsenius published by Penguin-Putnam Press. The large-format, black and white images showcase life in small-town America, where children eat lunch at school, farmers plant their crops, local news is shared at Charlie’s Café, and Friday night summers feature baseball at every town park. The embassies wanted to show a more rural, family-community-centered American life-style to foreign allies abroad.

The Lake Wobegon exhibit was featured at the brand new Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center through Oct 17, 2008. Richard Olsenius and Garrison Keillor teamed up for a National Geographic Magazine article and subsequent book project based on the mythical place created by Garrison Keillor known as Lake Wobegon. Subsequently, a traveling exhibit was created from Olsenius’ work from the book and magazine project. Richard Olsenius poses at exhibit entrance and later speaks in the auditorium, Sept 14th 2008 

America's Inland Coast is a touching, scenic and memorable portrait of life on the Western Great Lakes.  You will explore the unique coastal regions of Lakes Superior and Michigan through four people whose lives have been shaped by these inland seas.   one of the few remaining commercial fisherman of Algoma, Wisconsin as he lifts his nets from the waters of Lake Michigan. Share the helm with a veteran Duluth, Minnesota tug captain who has watched Great Lakes shipping change the face of this mid-western port. Spend the summer growing season to the fall harvest with a young wine-maker using the micro-climate of Lake Michigan where some of America's finest wines are produced. Finally, travel to the remote shores of northern Lake Superior on a classic sailing yacht with a 75-year-old skipper and discover one of the few remaining wilderness areas of North America.

This video has won awards at the New York International Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival and has been shown on PBS stations around the country. It is available on Amazon.com Contains: Main video feature: 55 minutes Originally Photographed on U-Matic 3/4" video and remastered to Standard Definition in 16:9, ideal for flat-panel screens.

Chesapeake: The Work of Marion Warren is a new DVD released by American Landscape Gallery in late 2007. It explores the work of the noted Bay photographer’s work on and near the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Produced by Annapolis photographer/filmmaker Richard Olsenius and narrated by Joanie Surette, the DVD blends original music  by Olsenius and the imagery of Warren into a Chesapeake experience for the new home theater. The DVD includes an eight-minute video portrait of Marion Warren’s life in his later years, an eleven-minute music video highlighting some of Warren’s best known Bay photography, and a one-hour exhibition of Warren images that can turn the average home theatre into a photographic gallery. The Baltimore Sun called it a “remembrance well worth the $30.” Designed as a “visual experience for the Home Theatre,” Olsenius believes that combining music and imagery enhances the photographic experience, especially with today’s large, flat-paneled screens in so many homes.  “I have always felt that still photography offers one dimension of the visual experience, but combining photography with video and music give it new life and energy,” said Olsenius.

Richard Olsenius’ musical and Video tribute to one of the last wild places on the North American Continent has just been completed and is now released on DVD and selling on Amazon.com and stores on the West Coast, such as the Seattle Aquarium on Pier 59. Twice Olsenius has taken a small boat on the challenging journey from Seattle to Juneau, about 1000 miles. Olsenius has also sailed from Alaska to Greenland through the infamous Northwest Passage, on the first American Yacht to successfully make the transit. “I have never seen anything as remote and as beautiful as this protected waterway that stretches along the British Columbia, Canada and Alaskan coast,” said Olsenius. “Yes, my work in the Arctic was more rugged and on the edge, but this Inside Passage is almost a religious experience.” Olsenius shot hours of HD video, often waiting days for the weather and sun to cooperate to gather some of his most memorable footage. The video is currently available at our store, and soon on Filmbaby.com and iTunes. “My goal was not to do a documentary per se, but to create an experiential collection of images and music, that let’s the land speak for itself.  You don’t need any narration to tell you what your soul can see,” says Olsenius.  Back in his studio, Olsenius spent several months editing and creating a soundtrack that he hopes will inspire and humble.

The May 2007 issue of Smithsonian Magazine features a cover story photographed by Olsenius. The story celebrates the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, America’s first settlement.  The story was written by Terence Smith, a longtime producer and correspondent  for “The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.” Olsenius who lives on the Chesapeake spent time retracing the route of Capt. John Smith, trying to capture the feel of the bay during Smith’s time. “Every year it gets more difficult to photograph the natural settings of the bay and other places,” says Olsenius.  “I’m not anti-growth, but the development by thousands of individuals each year along the shore is slowly, but surely choking the bay.” National Geographic Books.  Richard Olsenius has released a book in 2007, The Ultimate Field Guide to Digital Video.  His previous book, National Geographic Field Guide to Black & White Digital Photography released in 2006 continues to sell through the trade system.

“I’m excited about these two books,” says Olsenius, “because it gave me a chance to impart my philosophy and approach to two areas of my love, black and white images and video.  I’ve cut my teeth as a newspaperman before color came into the daily routine. It’s no coincidence that much of the great photographic works that hang on walls is black and white. Sure, color is collectable, but black and white will always have that timeless quality and message.” “Video has also had my attention for many years,” continues Olsenius. “There’s something infectious with the sound and movement of video. I think video is challenging.  There are so many elements, technical and esthetic, to good video and it all has to come together at once.  My new book tries to create a video mindset for the beginner and help move them past the technical to shoot and compose meaning imagery and sound. Both books are available through National Geographic, Amazon and all major bookstores. Also, The Music CD’s,  Distant Shores and Arctic Odyssey by Olsenius are now available at CDbaby.com and on iTunes.

“I’m excited about these two books,” says Olsenius, “because it gave me a chance to impart my philosophy and approach to two areas of my love, black and white images and video.  I’ve cut my teeth as a newspaperman before color came into the daily routine. It’s no coincidence that much of the great photographic works that hang on walls is black and white. Sure, color is collectable, but black and white will always have that timeless quality and message.” “Video has also had my attention for many years,” continues Olsenius. “There’s something infectious with the sound and movement of video. I think video is challenging.  There are so many elements, technical and esthetic, to good video and it all has to come together at once.  My new book tries to create a video mindset for the beginner and help move them past the technical to shoot and compose meaning imagery and sound. Both books are available through National Geographic, Amazon and all major bookstores. Also, The Music CD’s,  Distant Shores and Arctic Odyssey by Olsenius are now available at CDbaby.com and on iTunes.

From 1985 up to present, I’ve been working for National Geographic Magazine and Society. I’ve shot numerous stories for the Magazine, Books Division, Traveler, and more. I was also a picture editor in their Washington D.C. offices from 1995 to 1999 when I resigned to do a story for Nat. Geo Magazine with Garrison Keillor. The story “In Search of Lake Wobegon” was published in December 2000.