Richard Olsenius began his photographic career in 1966, capturing images of everyday American life. While still an intern with the Minneapolis Star, he received his first major exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts entitled "High School." The haunting black and white images from inner-city schools provided a stark contrast to the innocent memories most people have of their school years. His work has gone on to appear in other museums across the nation.

He was hired as a staff photographer on the Minneapolis Tribune newspaper in 1970, winning over 100 state and national awards for his general assignment photography and special features for the Tribune’s prestigious Sunday Picture Magazine. His work grew to encompass the rural landscapes of the West and Midwest, a theme he would return to in film, book and calendar. His stories took him across the nation, and to Europe and Asia, where he won the World Press Photo Award for his work on Cambodian Refugees.

In 1981, Olsenius left the newspaper to pursue film and book production. In 1981 his 30-minute film, "Autumn Passage," won a Bronze Medal at the New York International Film Festival. He went on to publish several books on the Midwest, including the Minnesota and Wisconsin Travel Companions, regional best-sellers, and the "Midwest" art calendar. The Travel Companions are still in print.

By 1986, he was concentrating much of his time producing stories for National Geographic Magazine. His assignments allowed him to further explore the American landscapes he had grown to love, as well as taking him along the Alcan Highway, Wyoming, Puget Sound, the coast of Labrador and the Arctic’s Northwest Passage. Here he had the opportunity of traveling deep into the Arctic wilderness with Inuit hunters and research scientists. In addition, he sailed on the first American yacht to ever transit the Northwest Passage and the first yacht ever to sail the Passage west to east.

In between Geographic assignments, Olsenius won an honorable mention in cinematography from the 1989 National Educational Film Festival for his hour-long video, "America’s Inland Coast," shown over PBS stations nationwide. The original music he composed for that film became the basis for his first multimedia product, Distant Shores, a four-color book of photography from the Great Lakes packaged with his original instrumental music.

With music a strong avocation from early years and an increasing influence in his work, Olsenius went on to compose music from his Arctic experiences. With the advent of CD-ROM technology, he was finally able to link his many loves - photography, filmmaking and music compositions in 1996, into a unique multimedia experience of book, music and CD-ROM called Arctic Odyssey which won several national awards.

From 1995 to 1999 Olsenius worked as an Editor at National Geographic directing photo coverages for their yellow bordered magazine and also became the Magazine's producer for the launch of it's website.

In 1999, Garrison Keillor and Richard Olsenius joined forces on a project that revolved around Keillor’s search for the real Lake Wobegon. According to its creator, Lake Wobegon is in central Minnesota. Here Olsenius returned to his roots with his 4 X 5 camera and black and white film to capture the people and places of central Minnesota, putting a real face on Keillor’s mythology. The story appeared in National Geographic Magazine, December 2000. A book, "In Search of Lake Wobegon," was published as a collaboration with Keillor in the fall of 2001 by Viking Studio Press, a division of Penguin Putnam.

Olsenius is married and lives near the Chesapeake Bay, where he and his wife continue publishing books, music and films that celebrate a sense of place, people and landscape.