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Bob Smith
@wildbobsmith
Photographer based in the US
My earliest childhood memory is of a road trip across the United States with my parents from Maine to California. I was two years old and my father was moving us across the country to his new duty station, serving in the Marines. I remember sitting in my carseat and watching the moon every night, the sun every day, and asking why they were following us. It seemed weird that while the cars, buildings, bridges, and fields passed us so quickly, this object would always occupy one place or another in my window. My stepdad would take me on road trips from Maine to Minnesota, through the middle of nowhere in Canada. Looking back I only wish I had a camera and a landscape photographer’s eye in those days. It was my great grandmother who used to take a polaroid at all significant family events. From her I think I learned the value of saving memories with photography.
"The women in my family were the picture-takers. My mother, aunt, and grandmother would take photos for the old picture albums."
"Fast forward a number of years and I joined the military myself."
The idea of visiting far off places seemed appealing and when I left for Afghanistan I purchased my first camera. It was just a little point-and-shoot but it was perfect for capturing memories of far off lands to later share with friends and family as my great grandmother, mom and aunt did. I had no idea that it would turn into my passion. Once you capture a scene under amazing light, it becomes a feeling that you crave to repeat. I hope someday my talent will catch up to my vision. I spent 15 months in Afghanistan, but got to see a slice of Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, and Ireland on that trip and it made me realize how different the rest of the world is, and yet how it is exactly the same. No matter where I’ve been, a friendly smile is almost always returned. A slight bowing of the head when meeting the gaze of someone else is international code for “we’re on the same team, and I mean you no harm”.
"Respect and gratitude are the keys to the city."
"In 2014 I bought a one-way ticket to Hawaii. I had just bought a Nikon DSLR a year earlier and was ready to see new landscapes with a camera in hand."
Hawaii is a landscape photographer’s paradise, with a blue ocean and green mountains everywhere you look. The most beautiful thing that I had the pleasure of doing was to hike the Na Pali Coast trail. 11 miles from the trailhead along the pacific ocean to a very secluded beach. I would say that Hawaii was where I found myself. I spent 3 years living in a van – I worked on yoga, meditation, and learning to surf. It was far from military life. My time there probably had the biggest impact on my current trajectory too. There are so many creative people that seem to migrate towards the islands that I was immediately surrounded by world class artists. The secondary impact was that the islands are quite migratory and I was able to build up a friend group that was from all over the world. In Maine this process would have happened much slower, if at all. Having many worldviews in your life tends to stop the echo chamber that can come from listening to the same people, from the same place, over and over.
Anyone who knows me could probably tell you I have a wide range of passions, but the one that I always come back to is photography. In Hawaii I found a waterproof film camera at a local shop. It was a Nikonos III which is purely mechanical. I loved the simplicity of it, no battery to charge. As long as it had film you could take a photograph, even under water. I would say that is when I truly started to appreciate the art of photography. When you only have 36 frames and it costs money every time you want to have them developed and scanned, you start to slow down and think about the shot ahead of time. That led me to buying a Hasselblad 500CM, and then a Graflex 4×5 and developing my own negatives at home. Shooting in black and white lets you focus on the light and not be distracted by different colors, a practice I use still today with my Sony A7III.
"Speaking of that Graflex, in 2017 I took a road trip with my two best friends, from Alaska to our hometown in Maine with only that one big clunky film camera."
It was 6000 miles and we drove it in 2 weeks. I was able to take maybe 20 photographs with the film I had on hand. That is where my passion for really long road trips began. That is also when I fell in love with Alberta. I had never imagined such a place in my wildest dreams. Driving the Icefields Parkway is a spiritual experience just like hiking the Na Pali coast trail on Kauai. This trip down the Alaska-Canadian Highway marked me profoundly. We spent around 5 days during the summer solstice at latitudes that did not get dark enough to see stars. It was very surreal to realize the nature of our planet in that moment. 10 days earlier I had been in Hawaii which is only around 20 degrees from the equator. Now at 63 degrees North in Tok, Alaska, I came to the realization that I was not rotating through nearly as much space as I had been doing when closer to the equator. Someday I would like to travel to one of the poles because I think the feeling would be even more intense there.
"Imagine standing on the North Pole for 24 hours? You would only be spinning in a circle, while anybody standing near you would be just rotating around you."
"A few days later we started to see stars again and I felt more at home as we traveled south through the Yukon."
Then we had camping arranged in Banff National Park and decided it would be best to drive through the night. When the sun set we were in the prairie. Then as the landscape began to appear the next morning we were in a whole new world. The mountains just shot up into the sky and the peaks were covered in snow. I vowed to go back someday and the next summer, my girlfriend and I left Hawaii to embark on a 22,000 mile (35,000 km) road trip around North America. Beginning in Denver we travelled for 6 months, hitting at least 20 national parks along the way. This was the trip of a lifetime. I had my camera (Fuji XT2) the whole time but I still feel like I was only able to capture about 1% of the beauty. It can drive you crazy, longing for the perfect shot. I always feel like I will be back when leaving somewhere inspiring. I have found that looking forward to future trips is the best antidepressant. I think it’s important to travel to change perspective.
"When anxiety and/or depression hits, go somewhere new. Removing the stagnation is key to contentment."
In the last 15 years my passion for photography has ebbed and flowed, but the little bursts of inspiration from others has been like adding kindling and blowing on a hot coal. Sometimes it is a new camera or lens, sometimes an editing tutorial, but always it pulls me back in love with this game of light. #FILMISNOTDEAD inspired me to start shooting films. @danielkordan inspired me to learn photoshop. @_marcelsiebert literally blows my mind with transitions from mountains to foxes to castles to girls, always with the perfect amount of mood and a dreamy color pallet. @visualsofjulius has me thinking of dreamscapes. I bought a preset pack for Lightroom from @andrewoptics and that helped me reverse engineer the moody look you now find in my photos. Right now I am looking at @simone_carresi and again my passion is reignited. And I would say that the curated feeds such as @nomadict inspire me greatly too. I am able to see so many peoples’ work in one place, it is like a modern day gallery that could be considered a MoMA for photographers.
I learn most things through observation. People can say that they were “self taught” but I think that is rarely the case. I think our skills as artists are cumulative in nature, and have to come from somewhere. I think I might really be onto something if I could combine the cumulative skills of Ansel Adams, Annie Leibowitz, Daniel Kordan, Andrew Wille, Max Muench, and maybe Platon for good measure. I feel as if I’m right on the edge of actually being good at photography! There is a saying, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must start by inventing the universe.” I think Carl Sagan said that. The same rules apply to both baker and artist.
"Another saying goes: “Learn the rules so that you can break them."
I think that the uncertainties I have about the quality of my work come from comparing it to the best in the world, even though it’s a great source of inspiration and learning at the same time. When I compare myself to the masters, my work is barely fit to be printed on a 4×6 and hung up on the refrigerator. Nevertheless, comparing myself to others that are better than me is how I stay motivated to continue improving. While comparing myself to others that are not as far along in their artistic journey is how I keep my sanity. If you only ever compare yourself to people who are much more skillfully advanced, you will surely be discouraged and have feelings of not being good enough. When this happens, go to Instagram and switch from the “top” feeds to “recent” in the explore module. Then you will realize that the majority of people on social media do not have many followers and are not all that popular. They’re not creating these mind blowing images and videos that you see in the “top” feeds.
"It doesn’t matter what you create as long as you enjoy the journey, as long as you continue to grow. Every artwork is valid."
The goal that I have right now is to change the way I practice photography and create a balance – as sometimes weeks pass by that I don’t touch my camera or open my editing software. Like with meditation or creative writing, I want to turn it into a daily practice. Something most people wouldn’t know about me is that I have very severe chronic migraines. If I look at a computer screen too long, I can end up in bed for days. It’s something I have to balance and since I wear pink tinted glasses and keep my computer on “nightshift”, it can be a challenge to get accurate color rendition. This year I plan to continue editing and actually posting my work. I should not be afraid to put the work out there and share it. Nobody should.
"Deep down I think my passion for photography and traveling come from a place of sharing the world with people who may not have the desire or means to go out and see it."
This “calling” will never die. When I bought a house here in Austin, Texas, I had the intention to get roommates which covers the living expenses and now that plan has come to fruition. I don’t have much of an excuse not to travel for the rest of my life, besides currently the global pandemic. I’m flying internationally (as a civilian) for the first time in January, destination: Belize. Another road trip is already planned for Summer 2021. Alaska, Maine, California, Utah, the PNW, and of course Alberta any chance I can get. In 2022 I want to see Europe, specifically I’m interested in Iceland, Ireland, the Alps, the Mediterranean, and Transylvania.
I guess the moral of the whole story is that there are hundreds of places I still want to see. And now that I’m in my 30’s I know that I want a summer home in Maine when I “grow up”, because every year I am called back to its wildness. I have a goal that in the next few years I will begin to be able to capture it as I don’t feel like my photographic skills have ever been able to do it justice yet, not even close. This is why I’m excited to practice more drone photography as it opens up a whole new level of accessibility to unique compositions.
So many experiences to live, dreams to pursue and goals to achieve. It will probably take another hundred years, so I must keep myself alive and healthy. I must remain #nomadict.
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