[citation needed] His rise to fashion fame was swift, although not without some battle on his part: I wanted to put reality in my photographs.
After making it to the top of the often catty and vicious world of fashion, getting paid up to $15,000 for a single image, he succumbed to his illness and ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco.
In 1989, an art historian researching fashion photography tracked Richardson down living in a flophouse, opening the door to Richardson's reestablishing contact with his son and eventually returning to New York City, where with the help of Richard Avedon and Steven Meisel, he was able to obtain teaching positions at International Center for Photography and the School of Visual Arts.
[3] Richardson restarted his career in his sixties, once again working for such magazines as Italian Vogue and British GQ.
Donna Mitchell, a Ford model,[4] later an actress,[5] was a notable subject[6] for his fashion editorial photography.