Shutter Sisters

Behind the Lens with Rick Smolan

By

During the month of October, Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) for the tenth consecutive year.  ACP is an organization and city-wide photography festival comprised of more than 100 exhibitions and events inspiring discussion and showcasing work of photographers from around the world.  ACP’s mission is simple: to create an international city for photography in Atlanta. It feels good to be here.

This past weekend, I attended an ACP10 lecture hosted by Brooks Jensen, photographer and editor of fine art photography publication, LensWork. In his lecture, Jensen suggests that “Photography is not about light. Photography is about life.” He encouraged us to first identify what we want to say with our images and then be open to share our stories with audiences in the form of not only still images, but audio and video. And with the recent launch of video-capture SLRs such as the Nikon D90 and the Canon 5D Mark II, my sisters, our images have the power to be still… or move if we choose. He suggests that photographers are not only image creators, we are oral historians and storytellers. 

My friend, Rick Smolan, came to mind as I listened to Jensen’s perspective on photography.  Rick began his career as a photojournalist for Time, LIFE and National Geographic. His curious nature and love of life lead him to create From Alice to Ocean (book and CD-Rom) in the early 1990s, the photo/journal documentary of a woman’s journey across Australian… on camel back.  From that point on, Rick began to orchestrate massive visual storytelling projects involving teams of photojournalists and amateur photographers from all over the world to document and share stories about life in print book and digital form including the Day in the Life… series, Passage to Vietnam, Power to Heal, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, America 24/7 and most recently America at Home. I caught up with Rick recently and recorded our conversation to share with you.  I was curious to trace his path as a photographer.  To discover and share the secret of his success so I might follow in his footsteps. Was the secret revealed? Yes, from my perspective. But tell me what you think.

Listen online or download Behind the Lens with Rick Smolan – a thirty-minute deep dive.

Rick was kind to offer all of us a 25% discount (that’s $10.00 off) his latest book, America at Home, for a limited time. Simply visit American at Home, create a custom cover with your image of home, and enter promotion code: fall08

* * *

The image above was captured by Rick Smolan and is shared with his permission. Ever since his children were toddlers, the first thing that Phoebe (7) and Jesse (5) Smolan do when they arrive at their grandfather’s Long Island home is to climb into the painted school lockers to see how much they’ve grown since their last visit. A scrapbook kept by Grandpop Elliott Erwitt, a renowned photographer whose images appear on the walls of museums around the world, lets them chart their growth.

Comments

  1. Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to listen to the interview I love his work. I can’t get to it until later this week, but I’m excited. I got his book a while back and I LOVE it! (I just have to get my custom cover)

  3. I watched a lecture of his on TED not long ago, and promptly ordered America at Home. Both are so inspirational. Thanks for the interview which I can’t wait to listen to.

  5. Thank you so much for sharing this organization. It inspired me to look into starting something like this where I live. The arts are so important and I hope to share it with an many people as I can.

  6. Thank you so much for posting this. I live in Atlanta, so I hope to get to as many of the exhibits as possible. It’s exciting.
    I love that image and what an awesome piece of furniture!

  8. Brooks Jensen has written a couple of fantastic books Letting Go of the Camera Essays on Photography and the Creative Life is well worth getting hold of.