Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards (born 1944, Dorchester, Massachusetts) is an American documentary photographer. Richards has published many volumes of photography and been a member of Magnum Photos and of VII Photo Agency.

During the 1960s, Richards was a civil rights activist and VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer. After receiving a BA in English from Northeastern University, his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were supervised by photographer Minor White.

Richards' published photographs are mostly intended as a means of raising social awareness, have been characterized as "highly personal" and are both exhibited and published in a series of books. The first book was Few Comforts or Surprises (1973), a depiction of rural poverty in Arkansas; but it was his second book, the self-published Dorchester Days (1978), a "homecoming" to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where Richards had grown up, that won most attention. It is "an angry, bitter book", both political and personal. Gerry Badger writes that "[Richards's] involvement with the people he is photographing is total, and he is one of the best of photojournalists in getting that across, often helped by his own prose".

Richards has been a member of Magnum Photos and of VII Photo Agency. He lives in New York City.

• Few Comforts or Surprises: The Arkansas Delta. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1973. ISBN 0-262-18062-6.
• Dorchester Days.
  • Wollaston, MA: Many Voices, 1978.
  • Second edition, revised and expanded. London: Phaidon, 2000. ISBN 0-7148-4001-7. With an introduction by Dorothea Lynch and an afterword by Richards.
• 50 Hours. New York: Many Voices, 1983. ISBN 0-394-62023-2. With Dorothea Lynch.
• Exploding into Life. New York: Aperture in association with Many Voices, 1986. ISBN 0-89381-177-7. With Dorothea Lynch.
• Below the Line: Living Poor in America. Mount Vernon, NY: Consumers Union, 1987. ISBN 0-89043-061-6 (paperback); ISBN 0-89043-062-4 (hardback). Text ed. Christiane Bird, story researched by Janine Altongy.
• The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 1989. ISBN 0-87113-255-9. 2nd ed. 1995.
• With Edward Barnes. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue. New York: Aperture, 1994. ISBN 0-89381-543-8 (hardback), ISBN 0-89381-564-0 (paperback). New York: Aperture, 1996. ISBN 0-89381-687-6.
• Americans We: Photographs and Notes. New York: Aperture, 1994. ISBN 0-89381-594-2.
• Eugene Richards. Photo Poche series. Paris: Nathan, 1997. ISBN 978-2-09-754106-2.
• Eugene Richards. Phaidon 55 series. London and New York: Phaidon, 2001. Text by Charles Bowden. ISBN 978-0-7148-4025-3
• Stepping through the Ashes. New York: Aperture, 2002. ISBN 1-931788-01-4. With interviews by Janine Altongy.
• The Fat Baby. London: Phaidon, 2004. ISBN 0-7148-4196-X.
• A Procession of Them. University of Texas Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-292-71910-1.
• The Blue Room. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7148-4832-7.
• War Is Personal. 2010. ISBN 978-0-292-70441-1.
• Red Ball of a Sun Slipping Down. New York: Many Voices, 2014. ISBN 978-0991218905.

• 2009: The Blue Room, 7 July – 13 September, Les Rencontres d'Arles, France.

• 1981: W. Eugene Smith Grant from the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.
• 2014: Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO

• Lassiter, Kenneth T., Gary Bechtold, et al. Techniques of the Masters (videoconference, April 18, 1991). 1991.
• Richards, Eugene. Eugene Richards Photographer of the Year. Rochester, NY: Eastman Kodak Company, 1991.