PDN: Did you always like playing with cameras? MATTHEW JORDAN SMITH: Funny you should ask that. I remember being about 11 or 12, growing up in Columbia, South Carolina and sneaking into my father s room where he always had 35mm cameras lying around. So yes, I was always playing with them they d be out on his dresser and then I d put them back so he wouldn t see me or suspect anything. But I guess he knew the entire time, because one day he gave me a camera and said, This one s yours. And then went one step further than that; he taught me how to use the camera. He taught me about f-stops and shutter speeds and even turned the family bathroom into a makeshift darkroom and taught me how to process film. And from that moment on I ve been in love with photography. PDN: Did you know back then what kind of photography you wanted to eventually? MJS: At that point it was simply a way to get to meet people, girls particularly! But I also liked just taking pictures of my friends playing sports. I just loved seeing the image and freezing the moment in time. I talk about that, even now, to my interns, that photography is more than just getting a pretty picture, it s about capturing the moment. PDN: Did any established photographers inspire you in your early years? MJS: I read a book about Gordon Parks, which really inspired me to think that I could pursue the field as a career. Before that, it was just a hobby. I never thought about it as being something I could really do and make a living from it. But after reading about Gordon Parks I thought, Wow, if he did this, I can do this, and that was the spark I needed.
PDN: Did you study photography in school or did you learn about it on your own? MJS: I went to the Art Institute of Atlanta, then dropped out of school but was still very influenced by certain professors there. I had one professor say that the best photographers in the world were in Paris and New York. So that day it hit me, to go to New York. I packed my bags and moved here and started working as an assistant. I did that for four or five years working for people like Barbara Bordnick and Neil Barr and Antoine Vargas and from there I turned towards what I m doing now. PDN: When you were assisting, did you ever think How long do I have to do this? Is it all just grunt work? MJS: Assisting, is it hard? Yes, it s hard. But it s also the best education you can get. I learned everything through assisting. In school you learn the technique. You learn about f- stops and shutter speeds and all the other basics. You learn the rules. But when you come to a place like New York and work as an assistant, you learn how to break the rules and make them your own. You learn how to brand yourself as a photographer, which is everything. I tell everybody: Assist. You learn what to do and what not to do. You learn different styles, different techniques. It s just the best thing you can do, next to shooting. PDN: Whom did you first assist for? MJS: Bruce Buck, back in 1986. He did mostly fashion catalogue 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. PDN: Did you do your own work on the side? MJS: Yes. You should always have personal projects going on the side. 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 test shoots. I got to know all the makeup people and the stylists and eventually I worked up my own portfolio and developed my own style. PDN: So tell me about your big break, you know, the shoot that launched your career. MJS: Photographing Anita Hill for Essence magazine at the height of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas was the first big job of my career. There were other big shoots, though. Shooting Vanessa Williams for the first time was a big break, as was shooting Oprah. With Anita 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 the women I photograph as beautiful as that first moment. And Essence must have really liked my results because I ve been shooting for them ever since. People look at all of my images, shot at different times, and say, Oh my God, he shot all these different women and they are all so beautiful and we like his style. At the time I remember being vexed about trying to figure out what my style was. It was funny. PDN: So what is your style? MSJ: I would say it s not so much a style as it is a brand. Simply, I do beauty, which has it s own world, because it s a mix of fashion and celebrity. I started out doing a lot of covers for magazines and I was shooting almost strictly women in the beginning of my career. Now it s branched out, where I m shooting men and women. But what I m known for is doing beauty shots of women. PDN: Are you known for a particular lighting style or for having a certain look? MJS: Not necessarily. People tell me my work is romantic, or that my work is clean, but I don t have one particular light that I like. I m always jumping around. I like using an HMI
because it looks like the sun. I like using a soft box because it also has its place. It just depends. I m really into lighting; I m a real stickler about my light. I like it a certain way, and whatever the job is, I want the lighting to fit into the story. When people ask me what I do now, I say I m a storyteller. I tell stories through pictures, and whatever gear I use depends on the story I m telling that day. PDN: When you first started shooting big celebrity types, were you nervous? How do you put yourself and your subject at ease? MJS: You re always nervous, but you don t show it It s like an athlete going off to any game. You always have butterflies before a big game, but once you start playing, they go away. I think the first big celebrity I shot was Halle Berry. I remember going into the shoot being very nervous about it but then I started shooting and I started talking to her, and it was very easy. We got along very well. I had made this gigantic set of a big chaise and it was high on a platform, which she had a hard time getting up on to. She asked me to please come and give her a hand so I picked her up and put her on this chaise. I was like, Oh my God, I have Halle Berry in my arms! PDN: Not everyone is fortunate enough to wind up with Halle Berry in their arms. MJS: True. And I must stress that this was before I got married! But what I ve learned in photography, or in anything, is that you just have to find the common bond. It doesn t matter who you re shooting. It could be the President of the United States or the biggest celebrity in the world; you find that common bond. We all have it. We re all born. We all eat. We all drink. A lot of people enjoy music. You find that common bond and then you stick to that thing and you relate to that person as a human being. That s what I do on each and every job. First, of course, you do your research, so you can go in knowing something about who you are shooting and find something you can both relate to.
PDN: Do you always have a set idea of how to shoot a certain celebrity before you even meet them? MJS: It depends. Very often, when you re doing editorial, you have your story before you go in. It s better when you plan things out. Now there are often times when I have a story in mind, or I have my set put together, and then things change and you ve got to change FAST. But that s also the fun of it, finding your shot no matter what. I remember doing this photograph of [actor/comedian] Tommy Davidson and I didn t tell him what I wanted to do beforehand. I just asked him to bring a tuxedo to the shoot and I brought a straightjacket. I wanted to shoot his crazy side and his sane side, and put them together. So I had a sketch of what I wanted to do, and I had the straightjacket hanging on a hanger when he walked in and at first he was hesitant but then I showed him the sketch and told him about the idea. He loved it, and we had so much fun shooting it. But sometimes it s not that easy. Sometimes you have to really talk them into it. So if you have it sketched out, or if you have a strong idea, and you can get them excited about it, they re going to do it. PDN: Did anyone ever say, No, I m not doing that? MJS: Yes, quite a few times. In doing my book, Sepia Dreams, A Celebration of African- American Achievement Through Words and Images, I photographed 50 celebrities. The process of photographing some of them was daunting, as you can imagine, but there are three shots in the book where I actually painted people really dark, and none of them wanted to do it in the beginning I had to really talk them into it. There s one shot of actress Loretta Divine which she definitely did not want to do at first. I told her to trust me, and that if she didn t like it I would come back to L.A. and shoot her again, her way. But I knew she would love my approach. When I sent her a print, she called me, crying, and saying how much she loved it!
PDN: So your advice is, don t give in, even to a bigwig, honcho celebrity type. MJS: You have to talk them into finding your vision, seeing something the way you see something. If you say you want to shoot somebody in a blue shirt and in front of a firehouse, they have this picture in their head, but it s totally different from what you see in your head. You have to talk them into seeing your image. And trusting you. PDN: So tell me more about Sepia Dreams. What was the inspiration behind it? MJS: Well I was teaching at the School of Visual Arts here in New York, a course called The Business of Photography, and 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. Later on I went to do a shoot for the Lifetime television network and 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 50 celebrities and ask them how they got started, what inspired them, and did they ever want to quit. PDN: Was everyone excited about the project? MJS: No, everyone was not excited about the book; it was a struggle to get each and every person. In the beginning, I just wanted to do a bunch of people I didn t have a number in mind and then, as I started doing the project, I said, 50 means completion to me, so I have to do 50. I remember being at 40 and having a real hard time getting somebody, getting anybody else, and then the last 10 just came in, but each and every one was a struggle, because when you re dealing with any celebrity, you re dealing with the publicist, the manager, the lawyers. There are layers of people to get to them, and it takes quite a bit. As it got going, the word got around that I was doing this book and it became easier but overall it was a difficult process. And now that the book s completed I ve had people walk up to me
asking why I didn t include them in the book! PDN: Is Gordon Parks in the book? MJS: He s number 49 in my book and for me, that was the end all be all, to get Gordon Parks for my book. I was so excited to meet him and he was like a kid, it was great. He has such a lust for life. I want to be 90 years old and have that same lust for life. PDN: Production-wise, and time-wise, what s involved in putting a book like Sepia Dreams together? MJS: Start to finish, it took me two and a half years. I remember starting the book and thinking, I can do this book in a year. That was totally naïve. A book of this magnitude takes a long time. You can t do it by yourself. I d never done a book before, never published a book before, had no concept of the publishing world but I knew I could do this book. I pulled in a lot of favors. All the hair, and makeup, was done gratis, for credit in the book. Assistants that I use for jobs in New York and L.A. helped me out for free as well. PDN: What was the hardest part of doing the book? MJS: The daunting part of doing Sepia Dreams was producing it. Getting the time with the celebrity; setting up a time to be with them, to photograph them and interview them. And then having all of the magic around, the hair, the make up, the stylists, the location booking the studio. In many cases, I got studios for free as well. To do all this and pay everybody, it would have been impossible. Eventually I got a literary agent and they sold my book to a publisher for a six-figure deal, so that was great. But in the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing. When you work on a project as big as this one, every aspect of it can be consuming. As a photographer, I'm used to the daily production of a photo shoot booking studios, hair, makeup, stylist, car services, etc. but when you add the interview process into that, it is magnified and then on top of that, because they are
celebrities, it's even more intense. PDN: Tell me about the cameras and lighting you used in the book. MJS: I used many types of cameras. The two cameras I used the most was the Mamiya RZ and the Contax 6 x 4.5. In terms of lighting, I used HMI lights, my personal favorite. PDN: When you were wrapping Sepia Dreams, were already thinking about your next book, Sepia Bonds? MJS: I wasn t. My publisher was! But I love the process of working on a book even more than the book itself that I said I would start the next one right away. And after being in New York and living through 9/11, it hit me, what s really important in life. It s not about what we do. It s not about how much money we can make on a job or make per year, or the big house or whatever It s about family to me it s about family, anyway. And I wanted to address that in a book. So the next book is called Sepia Bonds, and it s about the bond between family members. That s what I m slowly working on now and it s a mix of real people and some celebrity families. But mostly it s about real America. I m going through friends and family to find real stories. We ve done 13 out of 50 families so far. PDN: Any words of wisdom for emerging photographers? MJS: Absolutely. When I was teaching, I d end every class by saying, shoot what you love. Don t copy somebody else s style. Find your own style by shooting what you love. Dig deep inside and find out why you take pictures. What made you start taking pictures in the first place? And then shoot what you love. And then it will come out. PDN: So where will you be at 90? Will you be another Gordon Parks? MJS: I hope so.