Meet Rick Rusch | Editorial / Lifestyle / Humanitarian Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rick Rusch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rick, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
For years, starting when I was a child, my creative I was taught the importance of getting a career, getting a college degree, and to just pursue my artistic/creative for my personal use.

That inner desire to express myself was deep inside of me after I finished school. I joined the Marines and I was part of this organization for most of my twenties.

Afterwards, I finished up my schooling as headed out to the Phoenix, Arizona area.

I needed to put a roof over my head so I went to work and pursued upper management positions.

That was never enough for me. So what I did was I incorporated my creative side with my management skills. I did research and development for two year my career – published my work. And from there I was highly successful as a Director in the Education industry.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I got to the age that I just didn’t want to work for corporate America anymore. After 9/11 companies in the education industry changed. They made it difficult to be successful for my students and for my graduates.

After I had proven myself as a leader in my field – invited to be guest speaker at local/regional/national conventions, a new mindset of helping those who were looking to better themselves by attending school wasn’t the priority. What happened was the bottom line; it came to be about money. My success in helping other diminished.

During the tail end of my working for a corporation, my wife passed away. After I was able to pick myself up and move forward, doors started opening for me as a photographer. Maybe Beverly was the one who helped open them for me?!

Challenges?: The only challenge I had was me. Over coming my lack of experience in not knowing what a good photo was. And also learning how to edit the photos. I am not a believer in photoshop. I believe in trying to take a picture with little editing. Usually the editing is more about the lighting and cropping the picture correctly to give the audience an emotion I wish for them to see.

I am an editorial/lifestyle/humanitarian photographer. Once I learned my pictures were good based on the feedback and getting hired for work, the next challenge was to take photos telling a story.

Since I had a good eye, it wasn’t too difficult to do this. However it was a learning experience. Agents for models that reviewed my work gave me good advice and what they need to see in my photos.

My journey has taken a number of years to get to where I am now.

What sets me apart from others in this industry? I became a professional photographer in my early 60s. To be able to do what I do: climbing mountains in South Africa, to a waterfalls, working in the Arizona summer heat, to walking long distances to get to a destination, etc. I have to be in good shape.

I had started out early in my photography career as a fitness photographer. Some of these men and women had won national and international bodybuilding competitions.

I was given good advice about a fitness routine, the VA assigned me a nutritiousness, and one fitness model in particular got me back to the gym after 20 years. I lost 25 pounds which made it earlier to do the physical demands my type of photography requires.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is an easy question on where to go and that would be touring a good part of the state of Arizona.

From Phoenix, AZ which is growing to be a modern city with good professional sports teems, to red rock country – Sedona where there is a vortex many spiritual people visit.

Ghost Towns / Gold Mining Town where ghost have been report roaming the streets and buildings.

Snow skiing in northern Arizona during the winter time.

To the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley .

And if you are into boating, Arizona probably has the most boats in the USA.

And finally visiting the first people to have lived in this continent and that is the many Native Americans nations that are throughout this state. Visiting some of the sites – where the Native Americans lived hundred to a thousand of years ago, are a site to see.

Restaurants I am not sure about. What I usually do is what I did back when I was stationed in Hawaii. A fellow Marine and I would hit a different restaurant twice a month. We never knew if that restaurant was good or bad. We just went somewhere one the island.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to thank my wife, Beverly. She was a fashion model with the Ford Modeling Agency when Eileen Ford ran her company. After she retired from being a model, and after we meet and married, she tried to get me to model for Eileen.

After some family issues, I decided I want to go behind the lens and capture life. Once I got a camera into my hands I learned my photography skills by trial and error.

I am grateful to the men and women that allowed me to photograph them while learning about my passion. I also attended classes at: Tempe Camera, Tempe, Arizona and rented various equipment to explore what it took to be a good photographer.

x

Website: www.rickrusch.com

Instagram: @rick.rusch

Facebook: Rick C Rusch

Image Credits
Rick Rusch Photographer