Blake Richards Photography

Blake Richards of Blake Richards’s photography has been a Bay Area photographer for over 30 years. He obtained an AA in Photography from DeAnza College where he submitted some of his photos for consideration and was accepted into a one-week course with Ansel Adams at Yosemite.

        “It was great. It was very intense- every minute you were doing something. We started early in the morning and went to about 11 every night,” he says.

        Blake says that the most valuable thing he learned from Adams was the ability to see light. “The best thing to be a good photographer is to have a heightened awareness,” says Blake, “A little hair sticking out, the angle of someone’s head- you always have to think. When I’m photographing someone, my mind is working a thousand miles an hour to look at every little thing, including angles and light and background.”

        He started out as a fashion photographer where he supplied referrals of modeling agencies along with headshots and composites or zed cards. After that, Blake worked with a team of makeup artists and hairdressers and expanded into the world of glamour photos as well as working with senior portraits, weddings and events. Soon Blake began taking family portraits, photographing babies as well as headshots for business cards.

        His concentration has paid off because over the years he has been invited to photograph a number of celebrities including Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, Paul Newman and Charlton Heston. He is also the official photographer of the largest teen pageant- The Miss Teenage California pageant in Los Angeles.