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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Brian Smith: Art & Soul

Brian Smith crafts a series of celebrity portraits for a cause that’s close to home

This Article Features Photo Zoom

As one of the Sony Artisans of Imagery, Brian Smith is not only a user of Sony cameras and lenses, but an evangelist for their technologies. For the Art & Soul project, Smith tried to keep to a single light source whenever possible. It’s a philosophy a lot of pros could stand to learn from. Instead of unpacking a grip truck full of gear, by working with that single light as much as possible, Smith creates clean images without strange and illogical shadows. The images are all shot in similar, but not identical conditions to maintain some continuity while letting the talented subjects and their expressions and body language carry the shot. Above: Portia Doubleday

Smith probably wishes he had more shoots like that, too. He’s kept this one alive for more than a year, and now, even though he’s getting close to putting the coffee-table-book version of Art & Soul to bed, he’s still shooting.

“This has been really beyond a dream of an assignment,” he says. “If we don’t sit down and get this to print, I could shoot this for the next 20 years. But frankly, the stories need to be told. As much as I love doing these photographs, at some point, we need this book to have a wider audience. It’s been a blast. I tell everybody I’ve been extraordinarily lucky having many wonderful assignments in the course of a career, and this is right up there at the top.”

His target audience was apparently pleased with the work, as well. The reception he and The Creative Coalition received in Washington, D.C., was even warmer than they had hoped, and it came from both sides of the aisle.

“This year was the first time in eight years that funding actually increased in the budgets of the Congress, Senate and White House,” he says. “They all boosted their goals for the arts. It’s still below the peaks, but it’s moving in the right direction. That’s a very encouraging outcome, and it makes me feel like this is going along the right path.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to give back to something that I’ve benefited greatly from,” Smith continues, “and I think probably the same is true for a lot of the people I’ve photographed. I’ve been very lucky to be able to make a living doing something that I love and doing something that’s creative and keeps my life fresh and interesting on a daily basis. I think the opportunity to be an advocate for that is an absolutely wonderful experience.”

Brian Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and one of the Sony Artisans of Imagery. His photographs of famous and infamous faces of the noteworthy and notorious have appeared on the covers and pages of hundreds of magazines. See more of his photography at his website, www.briansmith.com.