Richard grew up near Boston, Massachusetts and attended Harvard College where he studied fine art. Initially using a camera to gather material for paintings, he was soon seduced by photography's unique charms and abandoned brushes and paints for camera and film.

In 1971 he moved to a small farm in the Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont and became a full-time photographer. At first he worked primarily on editorial assignments for magazines and newspapers such as Audubon, National Wildlife, Vermont life, Yankee, Country Journal, Geo, The Washington Post and The New York Times. His work was also featured in many photography magazines including Camera, Outdoor Photographer and Modern Photography.

Over the last two decades Richard has concentrated on over a dozen of his own book projects including The View From the Kingdom, Moments in Eden, Pictures from the Country, Tasha Tudor's Garden, Richard Brown's New England, and The Soul of Vermont. Richard's photographs have won many accolades, including awards from the University of Missouri Pictures of the Year competition, the Art Director's Club of New York, and the Garden Writers of America award for the Book of the Year.

His photographs have been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout Vermont, including the Shelburne Museum, the Southern Vermont Arts Center, the Fairbanks Museum, the Fleming Museum, and Shelburne Farms. A collection of his hill farm black and white photographs were exhibited at the Vermont Statehouse in the fall of 2007.

"When I photograph Vermont, I am drawn to the last remnants of hill farm life, and the hidden, still wild corners of the state. I am especially moved by those mundane but telling moments that reveal simple truths about the day-to-day lives of the people who continue to nurture this beautiful but begrudging Eden. I am drawn to certain subjects and themes. I have a weakness for birch trees, barns, draft horses, cemeteries, landscapes with sheep or cows in them, bodies of water, still or moving, the moon, rising or setting, and anything old or decrepit that bears witness to past Vermonters' short time in this obstinate paradise and their efforts to wrest a hard-won living from it."