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Jeff Smith
Jeff Smith, a graduate of Christiana High School and the University
of Delaware, became seriously involved with photography thirty some
years ago, when he received a 35 mm SLR as a Christmas gift. He soon
learned that the cheapest way to use it constantly was with self-processed
monochrome film, and still uses black-and-white more often than not.
He purchased a complete darkroom from an 85-year-old former photojournalist
in 1972, and is still using a lot of equipment made before he was
born. He is primarily self-taught in photography.
Aside from freelance photography and writing, which he has done
part-time for eons, he has pursued and been pursued by many careers.
His first was as a State of Delaware Probation and Parole Officer
with a caseload in the City of Wilmington. After seven years, he
joined the U.S. Peace Corps, and went to the Philippines as an agricultural
advisor. There he first acted as an agricultural extension agent
to a group of remote villages, then became involved with a province-wide
USAID project introducing new permanent crops. The project and his
Peace Corps service ended at about the same time, and he remained
in the Philippines to help create a private corporation from the
former project.
After nine years, he returned to the U.S. to get his children in
better schools, care for his mother, and provide for the common
expense. The move was ultimately precipitated by a typhoon that
flattened, but did not destroy, his business, and seriously damaged
all of his possessions, including 17 years worth of negatives. He
is currently working to recover some of these images with the help
of digital imaging, which he otherwise generally avoids.
He has also been employed variously as an advertising photographer
and copywriter, a newspaper special sections editor, a longshoreman,
babysitter, bookstore clerk, census enumerator, singer-songwriter,
produce salesman, photography instructor and as a replacement for
a broken switch. In 2005, he served as a Crisis Corps Volunteer
in Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina.
He has served twice as president of the Delaware Photographic Society,
and has been a board member for over a decade. He has served as
chairman of the Wilmington International Exhibition of Photography
four times. He is currently president of the board of directors
of the Newark Arts Alliance.
Jeff Smith's work revolves around capturing the unique moments
on the street that pass by and then are gone. His photos consist
primarily of candid photographs of people, intended not as portraits
of the person or persons pictured, but as vignettes of brief moments
in daily life illustrating our commonalities.
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