Bio

Rico Mandel is a Los Angeles-based photographer whose work spans fine art, documentary, landscape, architecture, industry, and the human environment. His relationship with photography began at age seven with a Kodak Instamatic X-15. By eight, he was developing black-and-white film and making prints, and by his early teens he had his own darkroom. Early exposure to the work of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Steichen, and Brett Weston helped shape the way he learned to see. Over nearly six decades, photography has remained a constant thread in Rico’s life. His later influences include W. Eugene Smith, Gordon Parks, Sebastião Salgado, Yousuf Karsh, Mary Ellen Mark, Diane Arbus, David Maisel, and others. He has studied with photographers including Aline Smithson and Mary Ellen Mark, while considering himself primarily self-taught. Rico’s work is driven by observation, memory, and the fleeting nature of time. He is drawn to places and moments that carry evidence of what came before—landscapes, architecture, industrial spaces, people, and environments marked by history and human presence. He describes photography as a kind of visual scavenger hunt: a constant process of watching and waiting for light, form, expression, and emotion to come together in a moment that will never occur in exactly the same way again. For Rico, making the exposure is only part of creating the final photograph. The darkroom has always been central to his process. Today that darkroom is digital, but the philosophy remains unchanged: the camera records the moment, and the darkroom helps complete the interpretation. His work has been exhibited at Photo LA, Photo Independent, and the Duncan Miller Gallery in Los Angeles, and has appeared in publications including B&W Magazine, Silvershotz, Photo District News, and Lenscratch.