I was very young when my family moved from Seattle back to the front ranges of Colorado. My father grew up along the Cache La Poudre River near Laporte, Colorado, not far from where my grandparents had pioneered the century before. There sometimes seems in me, the stuff and memory of that which lived here before me.

I purchased my first camera in 1967 to document my rock climbing adventures. But my awakening interest would be with making pictures that were more expressive. Two months after purchasing my first camera, I acquired a used, high quality darkroom, which I setup in my bedroom. My printmaking is, and always has been, inseparable from my camera work. I personally prints my pictures to preserve a pure conveyance, linking me to the artifact.

In 1968, a few months after earning a degree in chemistry, I was drafted into combat in America’s war on Viet Nam; an experience of profound personal consequence. But also one of clarifying disillusionment and awakening.

I have pursued photography seriously for nearly five decades. The recurring themes of this work pertain to photographing the home regions I have known since early childhood.

Richard Van Pelt

b. 1943, Seattle, Washington