Ric Savid was born in New York City, earned a BA from Rollins College in 1976, then served two years in the U.S. Peace Corps in the Philippines. Following his service, he briefly attended seminary before returning to the Philippines to marry the microbiologist who had previously discovered his intestinal parasites.
Savid earned a master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 1982, then worked as a police reporter for the former St. Petersburg Times in Florida while cleaning boats underwater to support his wife and two children. He quit the paper in 1986 to start a hauling and demolition business, which he operated for more than 20 years. He enrolled in nursing school during the 2008 recession.
Savid is a self-taught photographer who shoots all his images under existing light and prints in the wet-process darkroom. He has taught darkroom photography at various art centers in the Tampa Bay area and to at-risk children for the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, Florida.
Savid’s work has appeared in American Photo, Aperture, Black and White, and Focus magazines. He has been awarded multiple grants. In 2007, two of his Philippine images won first and second prize in the Prix De La Photographie in Paris. In 2011, he was the city of Tampa’s Photo Laureate, commissioned to produce black and white portraits depicting the diversity of the city’s inhabitants.
Savid and his wife Merla live in Clearwater, Florida, where he works part time as a home health nurse specializing in antibody infusions.
