As a photographer and printmaker I know the feeling holding a print in your hands and being fully satisfied. It goes deeper than just a nice looking print. It is the realization of a personal vision that brings that satisfaction. I also know how frustrating it can be to hold something in your hands that falls short of that realization. I have worked for severally years discovering and refining the things that have allowed me to create work that is truly satisfying to me, and now I want to teach photographers the tools to reach the full potential of their vision as well.

Developing by Inspection is my software and services company based on the pursuit of creating exquisite prints.

Biography

Richard Boutwell, originally from Joshua Tree, California, is a photographer and print-maker based near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

His work is based around aspects of archaeology, family history and myth, and the influence of spirituality, technology, and social media on how we interact with the natural environment. Through it, he examines his personal connection to the greater cultural, industrial, and environmental history of the landscape—mostly involving issues of water rights and the impact of recreation in the desert landscapes of the Southwest. In addition to his traditional landscape photography, he is now combining his photographs with 3D scans of the environment, found objects, historical materials, and appropriated mapping and scientific data.

Boutwell began photographing in college in the year 2000 while studying music and pursuing a career as a jazz bassist. Shortly into his first darkroom course and being exposed to the beauty and creative possibilities of fine-art photographs, he dropped all his music classes and devoted himself to studying the history and craft of photography. Instead of pursuing a formal fine-arts degree, he relocated to Bucks County, Pennsylvania to enter an intensive long-term apprenticeship with the photographers Michael A. Smith and Paula Chamlee. He worked as their darkroom, studio, and field assistant from 2002 until 2008, and then became their full-time printer and ran the scanning and digital studio at their photography book publishing company, Lodima Press, until 2015.

His photographs have been included in national and international group exhibitions and are in private and public collections. He has served as a guest lecturer on the history of landscape photography at colleges and universities.