Zave Smith Photography

It is not often ones gets to walk on the roof of the tallest building in town.  Yesterday while doing a location scout for an upcoming project I was on the roof of the new Comcast Center Tower.  

If you look closely near the center of the image below, you will see a five story brick building with painted yellow brick on the first floor.  This is the home of Zave Smith Photography as seen from the Comcast Tower.

More to come in a few weeks.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

One of the great joys of being a photographer is the opportunity to work with really talented people.  For me this starts with my crew.  Deborah Holljes, Kelsey Tome, Keri Souser and Steve Boyle all bring their unique talents, hard work and dedication to each project.  Each has made my creative life richer.

Deborah has been my Producer/Stylist for 13 years now.  She has a wonderful eye for detail and color, she understands my strengths and weaknesses and will always stand up for her ideas.  Kelsey has the ability not only to make people look better with her magic hair and make up styling; she also makes our subjects feel beautiful and natural inside.

Keri and Steve contribute the technical expertise that helps turn concepts into reality.    Their positive energy helps keep the job flowing.

A few weeks ago, I decided to update our website.  I wanted to expand the gallery, add some functions that would make it more flexible and allow me to share some long-term projects that we have become involved in.  I called Michael McDonald of Organic Grid. 

Michael is a “designer’s designer”.  He has won more awards then he has walls to hang them.  His logos and websites have given his clients a sense of beauty, identity and a strong presence in their marketplace.  Michael has designed the last three incarnations of www.zavesmith.com and each one made me proud.  I told Michael what I wanted to achieve and within a couple of days he came up with some very creative solutions to achieve my goals.  You can see more of his work at: www.organicgrid.com

The people who I work with and for are often my strongest source of inspiration.  They have helped me be a very lucky man.

 Sincerely,

Zave Smith

www.zavesmith.com 

all photos on this blog are copyrighted by Zave Smith. 

While the studio’s income is two-thirds commercial assignment and one-third stock a few years ago I became involved in the Stock Artists Alliance (SAA).  These involvements lead to me becoming SAA President this January. This highly paid ($0.00 per year) position has given me a unique glimpse of photo politics at its best.  

The Stock Artist Alliance (www.stockartistsalliance.com) is an international trade organization whose mission is to be an advocate for photographers who sell stock imagery either directly or via stock libraries.  The cool thing is I am now on a first name bases with many of the leaders in the stock industry.  The bad thing is my early mornings and evenings are now taken up writing memos and returning emails from this same group.  The funny thing is that people now think that I am an “expert”. 

You can become an expert by being very knowledgeable about a subject.  You can also become an expert by being able to write a good persuasive sentence.  Academics are the former, politicians are usually the latter.  Business owners are a bit of both but know how to monetize their knowledge.  I can write an amusing argument.

The world of advertising and photography are going through huge changes.  While during the 1990s and the early part of this decade intellectual property sold for a premium while producers of commodities like steel, corn and oil suffered through a price depression. Suddenly in the last two years this price relationship has flipped and our world has returned to the historically more common situation where ideas are cheap and goods are dear.  When consumers are spending $4.00 a gallon for gas, they have less money for books or magazines.  Plus, the Internet has made it all too easy not only to share ideas but also to steal them.  Trying to understand how photographers can survive and thrive in this world is part of the mission of organizations like SAA. 

I believe that for commercial photographers a few very talented people will rise to the top and earn good money.  A few more photographers who have learned to produce a high volume of decent images very inexpensively will also earn their keep.  The vast majority of photographers who have average talent in both image creation and business systems will find a career in photography to be very difficult way to earn a living.  This paradigm currently holds true for most creative endeavors.  I have always strived to be the premium producer.  My business model has always been to work as high up the pyramid as my talent allows.

The world of a free lance anything can be isolating at times.  Becoming active in professional organizations is one way to get yourself out of your bubble.  While there are times, when your spouse is sleeping and you are still at your laptop trying to convince a corporate bigwig that changing subsection “C” of the latest contract is good for the world, that volunteer work can feel overwhelming.  It is interesting how the word, “commitment” can be so motivating.

So now you know why there are a fewer posts on the blog each month.  Its not that I am writing less, I am writing more.  It is five in the morning; time to return another email.

Sincerely,

 Zave Smith

www.zavesmith.com 

Two weeks ago, on a rainy and cold December day in Philadelphia, I received a call from Glenda McKinley English of GMC Advertising, asking if I could come to Louisiana for a six-day photo shoot the next week.  Since several large productions that we were involved with were entering their holiday break period, my schedule was open and the warm weather and adventure beckoned me.  

This assignment was outside of my usual lifestyle productions.  With only the help of a wonderful account executive named Randy Reves and two bags of camera gear I set out to create a collection of images for the Louisiana Department of Tourism.   Because of the tight schedule I only had one hour in each location to create a story.  One hour to discover the visual poem that would describe each locations reason for being. One hour to create a photograph that would beckon somebody off their comfortable sofa and motivate them to drive across Louisiana to discover their past. One hour to create a photograph that in a millisecond captures a viewer’s imagination and calls to them, to take a longer look.

When we arrived at each location the first question I had to ask was what was the significance of this place, why was it on the tour?  Next I would have to find a visual way to answer that question.  I would explore each location from as many angles as possible in order to find the poetry inside its story. Most of these sites were in buildings that were never designed to be museums.  Several sites were in small homes, one was in an auditorium, and another museum was retrofitted into a bank building. These buildings presented a challenge to the curators and to me since they were not designed for visual presentations.  The name of the game for me became distillation.

One such fine place was in Donalsville, Louisiana. Here there is a small home that a several retired African American Women have turned into a museum that celebrates their community’s heritage from Africa, to slavery, from reconstruction, to segregation, and on to the civil rights movement. This gem was one of 32 Heritage sites spread over 1,400 miles that we photographed during this photo safari marathon week.

Louisiana is a very flat with lots of water in the southern half.  The terrain does not vary that much from mile to mile along the interstates or even along the two lane blacktops that link small town to rural hamlet.  I spent a great deal of time trying to find views of 200-year-old buildings without showing the 21’s century paraphernalia that engulfs these historic structures.  I have often felt that you could travel to all fifty states and take the same photograph; it would be of the strip mall along the highway. While Louisiana offered its share of 21-century visual blandness it also offered many sites that were unique, historic and beautiful. 

After 5 days of driving and carrying equipment around, I woke up with a splitting headache in the middle of the night in New Orleans.  I had left my Advil in Randy’s car so I ventured out along Bourbon Street searching for an open store.  The street was still buzzing with its middle of the night partiers, drunks, crazies and middle age voyeurs when I saw the guy with the sign that advertised “BIG ASSED BEERS!” next to the guy with the “Cross” and the promise of holy salvation. I knew then that all would be well with this world.

Louisiana is a poor state and since hurricane Katrina many of the sites we visited are struggling with the issue of financing their preservation and restoration.  Yet even without finical resources the people who run these historic sites are doing an amazing job of preservation and education.  Their dedication was truly the most inspiring aspect of this journey.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

12.28.07 

This months Rangerfinder Magazine had a wonderful article about me:  Here is the link:

http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/Nov07/160.pdf

Or click on the PDF file,   it will take a minute or two to come into view.   160.pdf

profile: Zave Smith

a passion

for

Photography

nurturing

Zave Smith, a commercial photographer based

in Philadelphia, PA, has been in the business

for over 20 years—long enough to see a variety

of stylistic revolutions, countless changes in the market

and incredible advances in technology. What has

remained constant, however, is the importance of creativity

and personal vision in his long-term success as

a photographer. Without this, says Zave, you’re always

chasing the latest fashion and always lagging behind.

“It’s like playing pin the tail on the donkey,” he laughs,

“but not only are you blindfolded, the donkey is also

moving.”

Even on a good day, staying your own course in a

world of opinionated clients, viewers and peers can

be a challenge. For people who make their careers in

photography, the situation is significantly exacerbated

by the need to remain fresh and innovative over the

course of several decades. “For those of us who have

walked life’s road a bit and built our professional identity

on earlier successes, we have a vested interest in

keeping our reputation,” says Zave. “The crowds yell

out to us, ‘Sing “Satisfaction” again.’ How do we stop

each creative answer from being in the same key? Bank

accounts, credit cards, kids in school and a reputation

to keep intact. How do we stop thinking about the soles

of our shoes?” Zave has a few answers.

Be Fearless

It’s one thing to be innovative and creative at 20, but

how do you maintain this same level of vitality and relevance

as the decades roll by? You do it by being fearless.

“Fear is the emotion that stops us in our tracks,” Zave

says. “Fear freezes the mind and builds walls around the

soul. The bumps and scars of a creative life teach us to

be careful, but being careful is the death of creativity.”

Control Your Environment

Controlling your mind can be difficult, especially

when it comes to conquering those knee-jerk fear

reactions. Controlling your environment, says Zave, is

actually much easier. “Nothing influences me like the

people who surround me,” he says. “Positive, energized

and giving people fill my inner circle. Whiners, braggers

and the selfish are kept at bay. On the set, I want

to free my mind to focus on what is in front of my

camera and not worry about what is happening behind

it. Once in a while during a shoot, I look around and

the number of people behind me startles me. I have

forgotten that they are there. I can do this because I

know that they are paying attention to their areas of

responsibility, freeing me to concentrate on mine.”

Zave has also learned to streamline his studio environment

so that areas not directly involved in picturemaking

take up less of his time. This helps him avoid

spending undue amounts of time on minutiae.

Do the Work

Potentially creative moments arise all the time, not

just during sessions, but if you’re holding the television

remote instead of your camera, chances are you’ll miss

them. “One of the pleasures of being a photographer is

that our creative life is not client-dependent,” Zave says.

by Michelle Perkins

ALL PHOTOs COPYRIGHT © zave smith

“For example, my shooting schedule does not vary that greatly

between the times when the studio is busy with clients and those

times in between. I am constantly shooting and exploring my

visual world.”

Find a Fresh Direction

“I am a big believer in the power of the trash can,” says Zave.

“Even good ideas, if they are not working toward my current goals,

need to be put aside.” If something is not working, Zave suggests

getting up and walking away from the problem at hand. This can

free you to seek out the answers by using a different approach,

getting past the one that has you stuck. “The pressure to make the

day’s numbers can give a lot of energy to a set, but I believe that

this numbers game can lead to making pictures that show instead

of say something,” he says. “Chasing the day’s shot list forces us to

see with our head instead of our eyes.”

Focus on Emotions

“For me, inspiration can come from a model,” Zave says. “I will meet

someone at a casting and find their look, and more importantly their

personality, captivating. I will then develop shooting scripts around

what intrigues me about them. The script ideas often come from my

day-to-day life. I then set the scene and let the talent act it out. It is during

this acting that I seem to catch the spark of life.”

Zave has another handy tip for catching this spark: He has his

subjects “play the scene” from several different points of view. “If I

am after a romantic couple, I will also have the couple act as if they

are angry, mad, contemplative or bored,” he says. “By swinging

back and forth through different emotions, they will often reach

a truer sense of their feelings. Most of our emotions have many

shades, many sides—they are complicated. Powerful photography

has that sense of the complicated nature of our emotional lives.”

Work is Slow? Time to Grow!

It’s the nature of the photography business: There are busy times

and slow times. While the busy times provide a clear sense of purpose,

the slow times can be breeding grounds for self-doubt—a

real creativity crusher. “These are the times when you recall the

parental voices echoing something about going to medical school

like your brother,” says Zave.

What’s important to remember, he notes, is that we get to

choose which mind games we will play. “Instead of listening to all

those dark tapes in the back of your head, ask, ‘What if?’ ” he says.

“What if I called on a company I never talked to before? What if I

offered different services to my present client base?”

Zave pursues other creativity-affirming options as well. “One of

my favorite activities is to take elements from a recent assignment

and re-explore them to see what other visual possibilities might be

there,” he says.

“I have found that each of my slow periods has forced me

to reexamine what I do and how I do it,” he adds. “Each slow

period has enabled me to grow and reach to the next level of

my career. Sounds strange, but I would not be as successful

as I am if I had always been busy. Those times of unrestricted,

undefined exploration are sometimes just the thing we need to

recharge our creative juices.”

Find Your Passion

Photographers often strive to be perfect,

but Zave thinks that finding your passion

is much more important than complex

lighting or flawless posing. “It wasn’t until

I gave myself permission to let my personal

passions enter my professional work that

my career truly blossomed,” he says. On

a shoot Zave notes that it’s easy to get so

focused on what the client is saying that you

lose sight of why you were hired in the first

place—the visual sense you can bring to

the expression of their concept. “My most

successful shoots,” he says, “are those where

I listen to myself as much as to the client. A

true collaboration.”

To see more of Zave Smith’s images,

visit www.zavesmith.com. And be

sure to check out his blog, full of inspiring

reflections on photography, at

http://zavesmith.wordpress.com.

Michelle Perkins is a professional writer, designer and

image retoucher. She has written for PC Photo and

is the author of Beginner’s Guide to Adobe Photoshop,

The Practical Guide to Digital Imaging,

Color Correction and Enhancement with Adobe

Photoshop, and her latest book, Professional Portrait

Lighting: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers

(all from Amherst Media).This months Rangerfinder Magazine had a wonderful article about me:  Here is the link:http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/Nov07/160.pdf Enjoy!  

all material on this site are copy-written by Zave Smith (www.zavesmith.com) no usage or copying permitted.

Today I finished printing a new portfolio.  Looking over this new body of work a smile came over my face and for just a moment, I thought to myself, “I just got good”. 

I feel this way a couple of days each year.  Until the plight of dissatisfaction returns forcing me to create new images with the false prayer that my next picture will lead me to visual nirvana.

My best works are pictures that teach me.  This learning does not happen when the shutter is clicked.  It happens later, after living with the image awhile, after letting the print take on its own life outside of my experience of creating it.   When I am allowed the pleasure and pain of looking at the new work with a fresh eye and an honest heart.

I update my book around three times a year.  I start by compiling a folder called, “possibilities”.  I then ask myself some very hard questions.  Which of my older children to I still love?   Which of my babies are “book-worthy”?  How do all these images relate to each other?   And the hardest question of all, what do I stand for as a photographer?

I lay all the possible images on large tables and then I start to play. Every re-edit is gut retching.  Each time when I start compiling recent work to be considered for the new edit I wonder where the good pictures went. It can take me up to three weeks of re-editing and re-arranging until I start to feel that this body of work is coming together.  Once the edit pleases me, I have to ask, what will others see and understand from this new story?  

After playing with the work prints, it is time to start the real job of printing.  I find printing to be boring and exhilarating at the same time.  Boring because each print takes five minutes, five minutes times 140 printings is a lot of waiting. Exhilarating because when I get it right, the prints can be breathtaking.

After the printing, the trimming and the binding I get to sit back, go through this new assemblage and hopeful at the end of the process I will say, “I just got good”

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

Lifestyle Photography for Advertising

http://www.zavesmith.com

215-236-8998

This mornings NY Times had an article concerning Skype.  EBay bought Skype around 2 years ago for 2 plus billion bucks.  It currently has 220 million users and it brings in 90 million in gross revenue.  EBay is now taking a huge write off and admits that it way overpaid for Skype.

Over the years my accountant has often asked me, “Why don’t you just lower your pricing, and go for the volume”?  I always answered that lowering of prices is a game that nobody can win for there is always somebody who will do it cheaper”.  Instead the game that I play is quality.  Try to do it better and more uniquely than my competition.  This allows me to charge a premium and maybe stay in business.

Companies love to play the volume game.  Having one million customers is more addictive that having 100,000 clients.  Salespeople love being able to offer discounts but what are the costs?  The landscape of commerce is filled with the corpses of companies that got hooked on the volume game. 

Getty Images is the latest volume addict.  It somehow believes that selling 10 images for $49.00 is going to make them more money than selling 2 images for $600.00.  Oh, they believe that they are going to sell a lot more than 10 but to make their numbers work the increase in volume that they would need is a number that exist only in dreamland.

Luckily for Getty, its suppliers and its investors yelled stop before they drank to much volume flavored cool-aid.   Can the same be said for the rest of us?

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

www.zavesmith.com 

 while we get to work on a campaign that is just so cool, so different, you just got to share it.  This campaign shot for Holton Teitelman And Gury is just such a campaign.

Enjoy!

All images on this blog are copyrighted by Zave Smith.  Do not use, copy, borrow or otherwise download.

We will pursue any and all copyright violations 

We are used to pulling rabbits out of hats, it is what we do.  But when on a Wednesday evening I received a call asking if we could put together a shoot in Harrisburg, PA by Tuesday, twenty photographs of kids, over two days in two unknown locations, plus a formal portrait of a dignitary, I thought to myself, “this is nuts”.

We did not have a script and only the vaguest notion of what we were supposed to photograph.   In order to save money we had to use the children of department that hired us.  The art director responsible for this project was away on vacation until Sunday night.  We did not have locations.  We did not have time to do a live casting for the supplementary models we would need to fill in where we were demographically lacking in “real” children. Harrisburg, while a lovely town does not have the normal support services that we are used to and besides, I and my producer had never been there before.

Right away, my producer, Deborah Holljes, got on the phone and rounded up our needed crew.  After a late Thursday afternoon conference call with 15 people who I never meet, Deborah and I started to put together a battle plan.  On Friday I drove to Harrisburg to scout locations and get a feel for what we might or might not be able to achieve on such a short notice.  Deborah meanwhile started putting together a cast, lists of props, wardrobe, and needed logistical supplies like lunch for 30 people in a park that we had not picked out yet.

Somehow, by Tuesday, all the people, models, supplies and gusto were gathered together and the shooting began.  Twenty kids, a park, and one photographer, it was a hell of a ride.

I hope you enjoy these images as much as we enjoyed creating them.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith 

 (all images copyright 2007-Zave Smith)

It was a warm summertime Sunday morning.  I found myself in the pews of the First African Baptist Church. This church was founded in Philadelphia, during the year 1809 with its present building dating from 1906. I was there to photograph the service for an exhibition that was going to open in just seven days at the African American Museum of Philadelphia.  This was not a lot of lead-time.

Though I had seen many depictions of Black Baptist services in film and on TV.  This was my first live experience of an evangelical nature.  I was excited to be there.  Most of my work is advertising with a few feature editorial projects mixed in.  Most of the time I am working with models and a crew, most of the time I am working from a layout and a script.  This particular Sunday it was my camera, a couple of lenses and a desire to capture the essence of an unfamiliar service without getting in the way.

Being open to opportunities for creativity has been one of the strategies that has kept my eye fresh and has helped me grow as a photographer.  Not all opportunities come from advertising work.  Occasionally visual opportunities arise from an unexpected phone call from someone with no real budget. It may be a passion for a project that is infectious or a cause that is just that will convince me to take on the work.  Often these unusual projects force me to work a bit differently than my normal routine, often these projects also force me to think and to see differently. Often, this new way of working will add to my repertoire of creative skill.  This project was no different. 

I hope you enjoy these new images.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith 

A sincere thanks to Craig Johnson of Talisman Interactive for inviting me to participate in this project and to Reverend Griffith and the Congregation of The First African Baptist Church for welcoming me into their Sunday Morning Service.

©2007-Zave Smith Photography

My studio is located in an industrial area in Philadelphia. Across the street an Asian man owns several food related businesses. This hard working man who barely speaks English also has his family living above the warehouses that he owns. Often times what I believe are is wife, mother and daughter can be found sitting on boxes and enjoying the views though nobody would call the views on Buttonwood Street pretty.

Yesterday I took a photograph of the little girl and gave this image as a print to the family.

©2007-Zave Smith Photography

There are times when it requires large team to put together a shot. Many of the commercial jobs that we produce can require: A producer, clothing stylist, set stylist, hair and make up stylists, models, props, locations, digital production assistant, camera and lighting assistant and who knows who else. Other shoots work better paired down to just the model and me.

On some jobs a massive amount of planning goes on, a whole dream world of sets, props, and talent is built to order in order to create this photograph world, which often looks just like the real world, only better. Other times I get to let life play out in front of me, where my role is to not to get in the way. On these jobs I am there to watch and to capture reality in a way that this reality becomes an icon or metaphor for what I want to share.

Sometimes the best chef just lets the natural flavor of his ingredients come through.

©2007-Zave Smith Photography

Today’s fun. Thank you to all who helped.

©2007-Zave Smith Photography

Just before I discovered Girls, I was really into shortwave radio. What made shortwave fun was listening to radio stations from countries that you did not even know where countries, like Radio Windward Island. True shortwave people kept a world map and put marking pins into countries that they manage to listen to. Shortwave nerds would even send the radio station a reception report so the station would send you a thank you postcard. Lots of postcards from obscure countries meant lots of bragging rights.

Today I am getting a similar kick out of Google Analytics. This web tracking tool tells you how many visitors your website receives and where your viewers are from. Google Analytics even has a world map with markings on it that like my shortwave days of old which shows you how many people from each city and country recently visited you site.

I find this information very cool and very useless though I do wonder sometimes why suddenly 30 people in Singapore decided to spend some time looking at my work. Now if I could only figure out a way to charge these viewers…

©2005-Zave Smith Photography

When I was a child I used to think that God was a super parent, a supreme judge of the Supreme Court. I have concluded that God is just a crazy artist.

Why else would this world be so beautiful? Why else would the clouds be so wonderfully every changing? Only an artist, a sprite driven to be constantly creating would have made the eyes of a fly so full of color and form.

Who else but an artist would create a creation the keeps on recreating itself? Who else but an artist would have created something so wonderfully inefficient like the song of a bird? Or created something as peaceful as a lake, as restful as a sunset and has warm as a hug?

Like God, we earn earn our keep through creativity, have to be open and permit the crazy artist who is inside us all to come out and play.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith
www.zavesmith.com

©2007-Zave Smith Photography

I am often asked how I get such seemingly natural looking performances out of my talent. I believe this look of authenticity comes from paying close attention to three important areas.

Casting: We spend a lot of time on casting. Our goal while casting is not only looking for the most appealing face but also for the most believable one. We start by making sure we understand the “character” that we are after. We want to know the back story, and through a thorough understanding of the creative brief, we want to make sure we understand the emotional note the talent will have to portray. Often times our talent appears with others in the shot and we also need to make sure that the potential talent works well with others.

During the castings we don’t just line up the talent and have an assistant shoot headshots. We tell each potential model the back-story; we tell them what exactly we are after. We try to give them props and light them the way the photo shoot might be lit to see how they emote and will look during the real shoot. If the shoot calls for interaction between talents, we will often pair them up to see how well they will play with others. The goal here is to make sure that the talent not only looks good and has visual appeal but that they can also follow directions and emote. In short, will they look and play the part?

External Direction: External direction is telling talent where to stand, what they should be doing or what they should be looking like. Smile, sit, and move your right arm are examples of external direction. External directions are fairly easy to give but giving to many commands can confuse a model and make a model feel insincere which leads to forced expressions. I use external directions to get a model into place.

Internal Direction: Internal direction is a bit subtler. This is where I use dialogue to try to coax the talent into the mood I am looking for and therefore into the right emotion for the shot. It is by this method of internal direction, which the model buys into his or her role and the sense of authenticity of the character comes through.

Internal directions often begin before the model is on set. I try to create an atmosphere on set that is supportive and conducive to performance. A while ago I heard a wonderful interview with Alan Alda on National Public Radio. He was talking about how when they first started filming “Mash” the actors instead of hanging each alone in his or her only trailer, hung out together around a fire barrel. He believes that it was around this campfire that the cast bonded and learned to trust each other. He believes that it was this trust that allowed the cast to achieve the level of performance that helped make “Mash” the hit it was.

I also try to hang out a while with my talent before the shooting begins. Whether it is during set changes or during make up I can often be found talking with and getting to know my models, It is during this time, when I can observe them up close that I can really see the raw material that I will be working with and in turn this allows them to get to know and to trust me. This is also the time when I can discuss the shoot without the pressure of being on set and in front of a lot of people. This is where the model can feel free to ask any questions about what is expected without feeling silly or shy.

Helping a model bring a concept or character to life is what I live for. Through creating the right atmosphere on set, giving easy to understand external directions and by helping the talent breath into their roles, we can achieve images that are not only visual stunning but believable also.

Sincerely,

Zave Smith

©2006-Zave Smith Photography

Go to any school play or sit on the sidelines of Saturday morning soccer and you will see more cameras and camcorders then the White House Press Room. These snapshots are destined to fill family albums, spill out of kitchen drawers and decorate the entryways of homes across America.

Families who are fighting for their kids lives do not have the energy to bring cameras to the hospital and record Sara lying in bed. Flashes of Hope is a newer organization based in Canton, Ohio, whose mission is to go into the cancer wards of children’s hospitals and create photographs of these young patients. These portraits are then given “gratis” to the children’s families. After all, at the end of the day, kids with cancer are just kids. They are beautiful, cute, and full of hope and promise. These are the kids whose faces have the power to remind us why we are all here.

RainTree Children and Family Services is a social service organization based in New Orleans. They help arrange foster care, adoption services, after school programming and provide a group home for teenage girls who need a safe harbor. In this time of government cutbacks, trying to keep an organization like RainTree going is a huge challenge. In post Katrina New Orleans, this challenge has become a Herculean task.

Through the offices of my friend, Richard Cardona and the Create-A-Thon I found myself spending a recent Sunday afternoon at RainTree. I was there to create a cover for a brochure. Since you cannot photograph foster kids for promotional brochures I had a couple of cute, “employee” kids to model for us. After the shoot, which was watched very closely by the six teenage girls who currently live at RainTree the director told me how foster kids seldom have pictures of themselves.

Just like with “Flashes of Hope”, I decided spend the rest of the day creating portraits of these unphotographed girls. These images were made not to “sell” but to share. And like the portraits from Flashes of Hope, these pictures will fill an empty spot the on the kid’s bedroom walls. For at the end of the day, foster kids are also just kids with all the energy and hope of tomorrow.

While I get a huge kick out of creating photography for advertising and I love seeing my images spread across the pages of magazines. And believe me I love the checks that I received for doing this work. There is a special joy in photographing the Unphotographed. Models know how to flash for the camera and create smiles that sell a million items. But capturing a smile emerging from the shy faces of those we seldom see is a challenge and a real pleasure.

It has been an amazingly busy summer at the studios. We have been shooting for Aramark, High Mark Blue Cross & Astra Zeneca. Check out our new work at: zavesmith.com

Sincerely,
Zave Smith
www.zavesmith.com