Richard has been making photographs since the age of 12. His rich passion for creating images was largely put on hold during a 30 plus year career in service with the U.S. Army.  From Private to Master Sergeant, and Second Lieutenant to Captain, Richard has been trained and served in several military specialties which include that of Infantry Paratrooper, Pathfinder, Green Beret: weapons sergeant, Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape Instructor, medic, combat diver, and dive medical technician. He served his last 10 years as a commissioned officer trained as a Physician Assistant.

After retiring from service, Captain von Trapp worked in the diving industry teaching SCUBA diving and serving as a diving officer, security officer and medic aboard a research vessel where he expanded his photographic interests to include underwater videography. You can view some images of him from his diving career in his Portfolio of Other Genre under Richard's Adventures.

Richard has returned to photography now as a fashion, glamour, and boudoir photographer living in Texas with his wife Dr. Currier von Trapp.  He is still traveling the globe, but now he is shooting its glamour where he finds it and teaching Technical SCUBA Diving.  He has lived in, visited or worked in 66 countries and territories, and looks forward to seeing many more.

Richard's photographic style, like all artists, is constantly evolving.  It can be described as magazine-fashion, editorial inspired, and cinematic in its look and feel.  He loves shooting on location, using studio strobes and light modifiers to shape the light while capturing the richness of the chosen environment. This passion and choice is part of what sets his images apart for most other photographers.

"I love paring the female form with nature, and urban elements.  My eclectic artistic style includes a love for creating edgy, evocative, glamorous, sexy, and provocative fashion and editorial looking images".