Richard Silver

Photo by Christian Hoiberg

Over the years, friends and family have become accustomed to seeing Richard Silver, currently a year-round resident of Montauk, behind a camera. Whether it’s an everyday gathering of friends, a special occasion or a vibrant sunset, Rich can be found shooting, often juggling between a few different cameras—most recently, his Nikon D750, Fujifilm XE-2, and his iPhone. He photographs a range of subjects, concentrating on the natural world, especially the more rugged aspects, extreme weather, or changing light, with many of his shots taken at night or in low light. He is especially attracted to the organically dramatic—the ephemeral beauty of sky and water seeming to meld together at certain times of day, the starkness of ragged mountainous terrain, the quiet appeal of something ordinary when it’s shrouded in fog or bathed in extraordinary sunlight. His signature style tends toward vertical orientation, strong colors, good contrast, deep or dark tonalities, and strong, simple compositions, mostly shot with a wide-angle lens.

Rich is constantly drawn outside, no matter the time of year or the weather conditions. He’s the opposite of a fair-weather outdoorsman, who loves to surf year round. He has skied many regions of the Alps, going off piste to find untouched terrain. His travels have taken him to many other locales – both exotic and familiar – such as Antarctica, Iceland, northern Norway, Japan, Southeast Asia, British Columbia, Africa, South America and even Adak, a remote Aleutian island in Alaska. His close connection to the landscape has led to an active interest in the environment, especially in preserving Montauk’s natural beauty and resources. 

Rich recalls being drawn to the camera from an early age. His parents, who were both amateur but passionate visual artists—his father a ceramicist with his own basement studio and his mother a prolific painter—instilled in him an appreciation of a variety of artistic mediums. In his thirties, Rich picked up a video camera and shot his friends’ events, documenting life as it happened. But even as video camera sizes shrunk and became much more portable, he returned to still photography, finding something pristine and special about capturing a singular moment in a singular place through the lens of his camera.

During the 14 years that Rich has focused more full-time on his photography practice, his work has been exhibited widely on the East End of Long Island, most recently in 2025, in the “Sea Between” photo show at The Lucore Art gallery in Montauk and, at Ashawagh Hall in East Hampton, at the 58th Annual Springs Invitational Art Exhibition and the 4th Annual Art Invitational. Rich’s work has also been selected for inclusion in several juried exhibitions at the PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont and at the New Orleans Photo Alliance in New Orleans.