![]() That way I always know I am speaking the smallest, most private truth. My guiding principles are to try to speak the most privately, To expose my most intimate feelings, thoughts, and anxieties. It’s the location that drives all the pictures. ![]() Once I find the location, everything sort of falls into place for me. The location is the key in which I compose in. I do not have any preconceived or preordained ideas. 95% of the pictures I take, I didn’t even know I was going to take them a few minutes before. “One of the things that is interesting, and I think people are always intrigued by this, is that though my pictures seem so composed, they are extremely spontaneous. That is, I have a love/hate relationship with making pictures.” Looking at pictures is one thing, he qualifies,“But making pictures - making pictures for me is hard, hard work.” “My feelings about photography are exactly the same today as when I was 20. As Smith continued his career into the nineties he slowly shifted from corporate executives to fashion photography. From the 88 Rolls of film shot, Smith ended up compiling two portfolios, which later became his first book:“In the Land of the Light: Israel, a Portrait of Its People(1983).” Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, published in Israel.Īfter returning from Jerusalem, Rodney Smith spent a short time as an adjunct professor of photography at Yale University. Smith spent 100 days photographing the people of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem. That’s why people always like it when something’s in meter because it feels comfortable to them. “In poetry, if one writes in iambic pentameter that is similar in cadence to body rhythms. That is, how things fit into the environment, their placement and scale in the environment, the relationships between objects and people, the photographer and his subject – those are all classically based sentiments. were impeccable everything was in the right place.”Ĭomposition is derivative from classical tenants. “I am a product of an earlier era-for example, when the compositional senses of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Merging what he learned, four factors became the driving force behind his work-composition, scale, proportion, and relation. Smith said in an interview with Kodak,“I absolutely knew I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't feel that studying in an art school or a photography department full time was the way to address the issues that were interesting to me - so I sort of entwined the two.” While at Yale, he also studied under renowned photographer Walker Evans, soaking in the lessons learned and transforming them into his own style. After he studied English Literature and Religious Studies at University of Virginia in 1970, Smith went for his graduate degree in Theology at Yale University in 1973. Rodney Smith was born Decemin Manhattan, New York. This work resulted in his first book, “In the land of light.” After that he has published a series of popular books. In 1975 he received the Jerusalem Foundation Fellowship, which enabled a three-month stay in Jerusalem. Playful and surreal, his photographs graced the pages of TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others. For over 45 years, fine art and fashion photographer Rodney Smith brought his unique vision to the world through his whimsical imagery.
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