Local photographer Richard Baker reflects on decades of work in new exhibition
The rushing lahars of the Mt. Saint Helens explosion wreaking havoc on the wilderness. A young Russian boy gazing into your eyes while he takes a break from the treacherous work of mining tin. Two muscular boxers in a match, dripping with sweat and frozen in time as they throw punches at the other. These are just some of the thousands of moments the award-winning photographer Richard Baker captured over the last 50 years.
You can see many of these images for yourself at The Tobin Gallery’s latest exhibit “Richard Baker 50 Year Photography Retrospective,” a show honoring the seasoned photographer’s lifetime of capturing moments.
“It seems like the world comes to him, and it’s his calling,” Rachel Lynch, co-owner of the Tobin Gallery and a curator for the exhibit, said. “We’re pretty excited about the exhibit. We’re doing a whole installation to make it feel like a dark room.”
This is more than Baker’s third official art exhibit. He has liver cancer with a terminal diagnosis, so it’s also his last.
“I’m only expected to live another two years at the most, so it’s nice to have a little send off,” he said.
Death doesn’t scare him. He first came face to face with it when he was just 19 years old, fighting on the front lines of the Vietnam War.
He had originally joined the army band in 1966 to avoid the random placements that came with being drafted.
But when his band arrived in Vietnam, his trumpet was swapped with an M-16. Against his original wishes, Baker was pushed into the jungle combat zone.
He was stationed there for 13 months and wounded twice on the battlefield. The experience as a soldier and the PTSD he came back with deeply influenced his creative output.
He returned to Vietnam often, 15 times to be exact, not just to capture the people on camera, but to meet with “so-called enemy soldiers” and throw parties for children in orphanages.
“I was seeking redemption, I guess because I was so sorry for those people and what we did to them,” he said. “My government might be crooked, but I’m going to try to do what I can to help [the Vietnamese] out.”
Sometimes he would search the local pawn shops for point-and-shoot cameras to buy for the orphans and bring back to show them how to take photos.
His photography journey didn’t start as early as the children he brought cameras for. It really began in the late 1970s, when he got the idea to take on photography for some extra cash while he worked as a freelance writer.
His first gig was pure happenstance, and occurred while he lived in Richmond, Virginia.
A large freight boat crashed into a local bridge one day, bringing a swarm of reporters and photographers to the scene.
Baker heard about the crash on the radio and rushed to snap a picture of the incident. The local newspaper paid him a hefty $400 for his work.
“I didn’t care for it in the beginning,” Baker said. “You learn a few rules and stuff. You can take a decent picture. But over the years, I saw how much more there is to it.”
To say the least, his portfolio is diverse.
Baker has won several awards for his boxing photography over the decades, including being named Boxing Photographer of the Year by the World Boxing Board.
“I’ve always viewed myself more as a boxing portrait photographer,” he said. “I really look for their expressions and stuff.”
For a while he even toured with legendary boxer Roberto Duran as his road manager.
When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, he was there the next day, snapping pictures in the wake of the volcano’s destructive carnage.
He even once spent a month in a Russian mining town, risking his life in a tin mine among loose electrical wires and steep ledges to snap flash photos of weary workers.
He’s not just a photographer. Baker has over a dozen authored books under his belt, many influenced by his days as a soldier and love for boxing.
He never stopped playing trumpet either, performing in Washington venues and in jazz clubs when he visited Vietnam.
But as he ages, it becomes more and more difficult to snap photos the way he used to take them.
Now, he spends a few days each week at Method Coffee with his film camera, sometimes even bringing a full lighting setup.
He’ll grab pictures of customers, develop them himself and return them for free. It’s a hobby he developed to pass the time, he said.
Aaron Artis, one of the owners of Method Coffee, has known Baker for over 30 years. He’s seen firsthand the joy his portraits bring to unsuspecting customers.
“People couldn’t believe that they’re actually getting a tangible object from this kind human being in today’s world that’s just going to do this for nothing,” he said. “It doesn’t really happen anymore.”
Artis grew up as next-door neighbors with Baker, and fondly remembers him sharing his remarkable life stories. He still has a photo Baker took of him guest lecturing in his photography class decades ago, now hanging in his parents house.
“He just captures moments,” Artis said. “And we’re lucky to have captured the moment of Mr. Baker in our lives.”
“Richard Baker 50 Year Photography Retrospective,” is open to the public at the Tobin Gallery until Feb. 3.
Baker will be reading his Hemingway award-winning short story, The Initiation, at the Tobin Gallery on January 31 at 6 p.m.
This story was originally published January 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
