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"My dad turned one of the family bathrooms into a darkroom and taught me how to use the camera and how to process the pictures," Smith recalls. "It was a hobby for him ... I've been hooked ever since. When I went to art school, that Honeywell was the camera I used." Now a prolific magazine photographer, with a host of covers and spreads to his credit, Smith recently published "Sepia Dreams: A Celebration of Black Achievement Through Words and Images". Like his celebrity subjects, he believes that determination, not chance, breeds success. He spoke to altpick.com from his Manhattan home and office. Where did you go to school? In Atlanta, at the Art Institute -- for a while, at least, until I dropped out. I guess I thought I was better than everybody else, or at least better than my teachers. I thought they were pushing me in the wrong direction. They were teaching us how to get work in the region; I wanted to work in New York. So I quit and moved to New York.
My first two weeks here I took a job at Bloomingdales selling ties. I remember everybody working there was from all over the country and had come to New York to chase a dream: 'I want to be an actor, I want to be a dancer, I want to be a writer.' I met this woman -- a still-life photographer -- and she said I could work for her on my day off. I met my first full-time boss through her, in 1986. His name was Bruce Buck. He did mostly fashion catalog shoots, and he offered me a job for $200 a week as his assistant. I ate peanut butter and jelly every day for dinner, and whatever I could get for free at lunch on his shoots. Did you do your own work on the side?You always, always should have personal projects going. I meet assistants today, and they say, 'Oh, I'm going skiing for the weekend.' For me, every dime I made, every minute of spare time I had, I spent on my photography. Bruce let me use his studio to do what we call test shoots. I met tons of girls on these catalog shoots, got to know all the makeup people, the stylists. So eventually I worked up my own portfolio, developed my own style. Did you eventually have one of those 'big break' moments?My first big job was shooting Anita Hill for Essence magazine ... at the height of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings (for Clarence Thomas). How did you approach the shoot? I knew I wanted to catch the essence of her that we didn't see on TV at the time. I remember meeting her for the first time and thinking, 'This woman is really beautiful.' And that was downplayed on TV; in person she was stunning. I wanted to make her as beautiful as that first instant I saw her. That's always what I want to do -- make them as beautiful as that first moment.
We had to fly to Missouri to do the shoot, along with the editor-in-chief of Essence. I remember she was sortof interviewing me on the flight. She asked me what I wanted to be, and I told her I wanted to be a big photographer. I guess it worked. I'm shooting for Essence tomorrow; I've been shooting for them my entire career. So your career started snowballing after that?It was more like a gradual evolution for me. I would shoot one job, then the next day assist on a job. It was really humbling, carrying all the equipment and doing all the grunt work. I did that until I was shooting so much I couldn't assist anymore. But it took several years You really believe, then, that there is a formula for success -- something that sounds as simple as 'hard work'? Somebody recently told me that a dream that is not written down is like smoke in the air -- it will disappear without a trace. And my book really is all about this story.
I was teaching at the School of Visual Arts here in New York ... Almost every day, at the end of class, there was this one student who would ask the question, 'What's the secret?' Whether it was the secret to a successful business, to finding the right equipment, whatever. I would tell her there is no secret, but she never got that. Then, later, I went to do a shoot for Lifetime. I was the only black person in the room. They said, 'This is really odd, seeing a black photographer. How did you make it?' And there was the question again. So I talked to some friends ... and decided to interview and photograph fifty celebrities and ask them the question: how they got started, what inspired them, did they ever quit. How much of that larger story of success is an African-American story?So much -- how we went from struggling and dreaming to make it happen. You hear fifty stories, you see there's a pattern: No one had it easy, none of us had it easy. Is it dangerous, though, to focus so much on celebrity, in a culture that is already obsessed with the unattainable life of the rich and famous? Well, the reality is if you want to do something that gets noticed, you have to do it in a way that gets attention, and sometimes celebrity is that way. But, that said, now that I have that as a launching pad, I plan to do work that focuses more on real people. Funny you say 'real people.' What do you mean? My next book, "Sepia Bonds," will focus on the bonds within families. I will interview and photograph fifty family groups. But only ten will be celebrities. We definitely have this thing where we put people on a pedestal. This time around, I want to focus on people who everyone can relate to. - Contributed by Kelly McEvers >> See more work from Matthew Jordan Smith >> See other member spotlights on the member spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
