Richard Albertine was born in
Norwich, Connecticut in 1944. He started photographing as a teenager and won his first cash prize in a photography contest organized by
The Hartford Times newspaper in Connecticut. He entered
Ambrose Street Kids (1963)
, a portrait of three homeless children from the streets of
Rochester, New York After serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, Albertine returned to New England. At the same time, Albertine continued to invest in his formal education. He enrolled in the
Rochester Institute of Technology photography program, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1970. He then went to graduate school at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under
Minor White.
Last Shooting Trip with Minor White (1971) is a testament to their relationship. During the late 1980s Albertine turned his subject to the flora of Louisiana. His depictions of
Avery Island, a nature reserve near the Louisiana coast, became a feature of his oeuvre. Exhibitions of this period focused on views of live oaks and palms endemic of the island, as well as flora in the banks of the
Mississippi River and other wild areas. Albertine secured an Artist Sponsorship deal with
Polaroid during the early 1990s, in which the company provided photographers with supplies in exchange for regular exhibitions to showcase their equipment. Albertine's Polaroid Portraits series returned the subject matter to snapshots of his social life. He experimented with alternative light sources and movement, frequently combining camera flash with the ‘bulb’ shutter setting of his Polaroid 110A. The result is an array of dynamic compositions that are full of energy and movement. These photographs were exhibited in a one-man show in Baton Rouge, LA. In 1996, his work was featured alongside
A. J. Meek and a dozen others in Susan Sipple Elliot's book
The South by its Photographers. Richard Albertine died in March 2016. ==References==