Was originally hired for Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) as the cinematographer for the miniature portions only. Despite his friendship with director Benh Zeitlin the producers were hesitant to hire Richardson to shoot the entire film as he had never shot a feature. After the producers had failed to find a veteran cinematographer appropriate for the project, Richardson shot a test reel on his own and presented it to them, and was subsequently hired.

Cinematically, what I think we were trying to achieve was a camera that was reactive and inexperienced, naive and exploratory. We just wanted the world to be revealed moment by moment, just the way [Hushpuppy] is discovering it. We had some scenes where Benh would encourage me to keep the camera less stable. I got pretty good with the rig we were using - it wasn't Steadicam but I could lock it off - and Benh would look over at me and say 'Give it some life'.