Statement by the photographer, Mike SMITH
“The driving force, above of all, was my whole-hearted embrace of the photography as a way of life. As a Vietnam veteran (where I first discovered the medium) at the age of twenty, for the first time, I believed I had a future to pursue.” (© Mike SMITH)
Background information
"After an unfortunate event on the streets of Boston in 1976, resulting in a head injury to an angry man while working with a 35mm camera, the American artist Mike SMITH traded in his his Leica for a Linhof Press 23 camera, and moved away from spontaneous street photography to more intimate portraits. He would go on to produce a detailed record of the inhabitants of Boston’s streets in an inclusive, non-judgmental, and yet direct approach. He worked with a large camera, a formidable machine that got people's attention and held it long enough for him to complete the related tasks to operate it successfully." (© Stanley / Barker, 2021)