Here are two images from a recent story I shot in Philadelphia for AARP Magazine. It was a story about a program called Reading Buddies in which seniors are paired with inner city children for a weekly hour of constructive adult attention. The program was started by a woman named Pat Quiqq and has been operating for over 30 years.
I’m feeling a little sentimental this morning so I thought I’d share the video I made for Boone’s 1st birthday which was 2 weeks ago. Here’s to another great year!
Boone’s1stYear from Ryan Smith on Vimeo.
I recently had the opportunity to work with musician, Laura Mae Socks for her new promotional photos. Laura is a country musician and a long time friend so when she asked me if I would be interested in photographing her, it was a no brainer. I have mentioned on this blog before that musicians are some of my favorite subjects to photograph because it’s always a collaborative process. This shoot was no exception.
Laura lives in New Orleans but was recently in my area for a few weeks which gave us an opportunity to get together. We decided to spend the day in two unique locations playing with various concepts. Laura is also a trained makeup artist and has a great wardrobe to work with so I was able to concentrate wholly on the composition and lighting of the photographs.
We had a hard time editing these down and ended up with quite a few great shots. These are some of my personal favorites.
Today is my son’s 1st Birthday. He explores the world with gusto and I couldn’t be more proud of him. It’s been awesome to watch him grow over the past year. Happy Birthday Boone!
The Year of Boone from Ryan Smith on Vimeo.
I’ve been slacking big time on my blog updates for the past few months. As always, I pledge to do better. We’ll see. For now, here’s a photo I took while working on my Rural Exposures Project last month in Pottsville, PA.
White Zombie Tuxedo
In general, I don’t get that excited by most of the Super Bowl commercials, but this time something really caught my attention. Maybe it’s because I felt a connection to the images used in this spot. Maybe it’s because I grew up in an agricultural community surrounded by farming families. Maybe it’s because I thought the photographs were brilliant or maybe it’s because I wanted to be the photographer who shot these images.
Regardless, I think the ad was excellent. I’m sure there will be many naysayers, but from my perspective, it was brilliant. In fact, I would say it was the only ad that actually held my attention. I spent most of the game drinking and eating with friends and family, but by the time this ad came on, I was engrossed in reading my iPad while semiconsciously paying attention to the game. This ad brought be out of my stupor and pulled me in.
Paul Harvey’s voice wrapped itself around me and demanded my attention. When have you heard a voice and a tribute quite like that? And then, the images did their work. They were beautiful, powerful and authentic. They made me jealous of the photographers given this assignment. It’s exactly the job I would want to do.
I did some sleuthing and believe that the ad was produced by The Richards Group out of Dallas, TX. I also discovered that 10 different photographers shot for this ad, 2 of them being William Albert Allard and Kurt Markus. I’m not sure who the other 8 are and would love to here if anyone reading this knows. I think they all deserve some respect for their images. I’ve always looked up to the work of Allard and Markus and I would love to know who else contributed to this.
Lastly, I think the photo editor on this should be commended for his or her work. The sequence was perfect. The image selection made this story successful. And now, I think I’m going to go buy a Ram.
UPDATE
I just saw on A Photo Editor that the ten photographers who worked on this project are Andy Anderson, William Allard, Jim Arndt, Daniel Beltra, Mark Gooch, Andy Mahr, Kurt Markus, David Spielman, Matt Turley and Olaf Veltman