Intrepid documentary photographer David Maurice Smith travels the globe observing marginalized communities, cross-cultural issues and, most recently, the Syrian refugee crisis from behind the lens of his Canon 5D Mark III.
Smith, 42, who grew up in West Vancouver and graduated from Collingwood School, is currently based in Sydney, Australia, where he lives with his wife and young son. Since embarking seriously on the photojournalism path seven years ago Smith has covered everything from a healthcare crisis in Myanmar, to the mass exodus of Syrian refugees into Jordan, to the indigenous, outback community of Wilcannia, Australia, languishing under third-world conditions - the latter being a multi-year passion project of his.
An award-winning photographer, Smith's images have appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and on CNN and The Discovery Channel, among other esteemed media outlets.
The North Shore News caught up with Smith for a Q&A via telephone at 7 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Australian time, a couple weeks after he returned from covering the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe.
North Shore News: Would you say you had an innate interest in storytelling or photography?
David Maurice Smith: I was a very artistic child, but I got kind of involved in athletics when I was a young teen and went down that route for quite awhile, and ended up playing basketball at Simon Fraser (University). I now know that that kind of focus on sports and that hyper-competitive athletic environment, I just got to a point where I realized that it wasn't what I was suited for. It wasn't until after I had finished with sports that I started getting back to more artistic things and started taking pictures.
North Shore News: When did photography become a passion?
David Maurice Smith: The first time I got really grabbed by it and I thought, 'Wow this is something that speaks to me,' I went on an overseas trip when I was 21 or 22 and my father bought me a Minolta. He got it at a used camera shop on Granville Street, and a big bag of film - and that was it.
North Shore News: Did you take formal photography courses?
David Maurice Smith: I studied at Langara (College), and I studied at a school, I don't know if it's still there to be honest, called Focal Point, in Kitsilano. I studied darkrooms and the basics of film shooting even though it was kind of at a time when work-wise digital was obviously what everyone was shooting, but I just wanted to learn. I guess go back to learning the old school stuff. So I was shooting medium format film - it's just a different process, a very slow process. With that I also studied specific documentary photography classes. But really just getting out and shooting, that's the way I definitely learned the most. I kind of developed my own sense of what I wanted to do.
North Shore News: Talk about some of your early photography expeditions.
David Maurice Smith: I went and spent a week in Mexico City just by myself and took the cameras. Each day I would get on the subway and just ride it to its terminus in one direction and get off and then spend the day there. And then the next day do the same in a different direction. So essentially I was just shooting street photography but it was kind of at a point early on again where I was just learning to see things and learning my own style and so I wasn't really locked into issues with my camera yet. Like I understood social issues because of my career I had before (as a social worker), but I didn't know how to visually demonstrate that yet. It was a process.
North Shore News: You mentioned Mexico City having a reputation of being intimidating. Did that perception hold you back while you were photographing your surroundings? David Maurice Smith: "I'm used to going places that are might seem fairly intimidating, plus I am a big male and not the likely target. I'm 6-7. I'm pretty good at reading social cues which always helps my photography.
North Shore News: How did you break into photojournalism? David Maurice Smith: The most important to me was personal stories. The days of getting a job at your local paper and working your way up, those days are pretty much gone. Now so much of what I do is personally driven. Most of the stuff I get is from me directly hustling, contacting people. It's about finding these issues that you think are important and necessary, and creating work and then finding outlets for that work that are one, going to help the profile of the work so that the message gets out and two, allow you to actually make a living. Even if I am not on assignment I still try to get away as much as I can to cover stories because usually once you are there you can pick up stories. When I went to Europe in September I didn't have any secure assignments before I went but I knew that once I got there I would be able to pick stuff up. And I had a week with The Globe and Mail; when I got off the plane they had emailed me.
North Shore News: When did you start covering the Syrian refugee crisis?
David Maurice Smith: It was about a year and a half ago I went to Jordan. It's a neighbouring country to Syria and a huge number of Syrians - like half the country is displaced. You are talking about 10 to 12 million people. Most of those are still inside the country but millions of them have fled across borders into neighbouring countries like Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan. So I went to Jordan - there's one camp in particular there it's called Za'atari.
North Shore News: Do you go into these areas blindly?
David Maurice Smith: I did legwork, you know. I contacted people before I went and did as much research as I could, and then I hired a fixer. We rely on fixers a lot in different regions. A fixer is a person who is local, who speaks the language, understands the culture and might act as a driver - they are basically your ears and eyes on the ground. My fixer there (in Jordan), for example, he knows where the ministry offices are to get your paperwork to get into the refugee camps.
North Shore News: What is that process like, getting access to an area overwhelmed with refugees?
David Maurice Smith: Za'atari was, at the time, the second biggest refugee camp in the world and it was only a couple of years old. So it went from, 'OK there's going to be 20,000, 40,000 people coming across the border, we will set up a camp,' to a mass exodus. And at its peak they had 150,000 people. So it's quite a scene. Bear in mind a lot of them were not poor people before this happened, they are people potentially who had apartments and cars and refrigerators. In Za'atari you only get two days (as a journalist) unless you have a really good hookup with maybe the UNHCR or something like that. But even people on assignment for The New York Times that I know who have gone only got two days, which isn't much. You can only get in there from 9 (a.m.) until 5 (p.m.) which is depending on the time of year is limiting because you want to get there when the light is good in the morning and stay until the light is good in the afternoon. I spent most of the time when I was in Jordan actually outside of the camps, looking at people living in urban areas because that's where most of the Syrians are - living in empty buildings, storage units, sheds or tents in people's yards. So that is where I put a lot of my energy, focusing on those people who are a little more at risk.
North Shore News: What was your experience like in September covering the refugee crisis?
David Maurice Smith: At the time I went straight to Hungary because that was kind of the flashpoint. Hungary was threatening to close its border. The scale of it was very obvious, thousands of people a day moving from one point to the next. Hungary was not welcoming to these people and was not trying to facilitate their movement. There was a lot of drama, there was a lot of confrontation with police. There was a riot that I covered that was full-blown with tear gas and people getting beat up.
North Shore News: Where do you rest for the night? David Maurice Smith: It always depends. At one point I was staying in Budapest and the situation changed and people started making their way towards the border and I followed. And I didn't stay anywhere for five days, I was with them. So one night I slept for about an hour under a tree, the rest of the time I was up for 40 hours straight. I grabbed a few hours here, a few hours there on a bus or a train, where they were when they were sleeping. It might sound dramatic but then you kind of go, 'Wow, these people, this is their life, this is what they are going through every single day.' People with families and children that are just exhausted. A lot of the times people wanted you to actually move with them because they felt safer knowing that you were there. They would often look to me to try and get information. There's very little organization to this, people don't know what to expect. Are the police going to arrest us here? Are we going to be put in camps?
North Shore News: Do you ever wear protective gear?
David Maurice Smith: It was Europe, it's not a war zone. I always carry a scarf in my bag. I mean it's the handiest thing to have for a lot of reasons. I know it sounds stupid but you'll see a lot photojournalists have a scarf. It's like a Swiss army knife, you can use it to cover your face if you are sitting in the back of a car or a truck and it's dusty, you can use it as a tourniquet. I had it wrapped around my face because there was tear gas and pepper spray.
North Shore News: When did your Instagram numbers (Smith has 41,500 followers) begin to climb?
David Maurice Smith: They jumped significantly while I was in Europe working on the refugee crisis after Instagram featured my feed. Also The Huffington Post featured me as a photographer covering the refugee crisis and I think that had an impact.
North Shore News: How did you wind up in Australia after leaving B.C. seven years ago?
David Maurice Smith: My wife is originally from there. I think I really just was craving going somewhere new. I wanted to progress my photography and moving to the U.S. to New York it probably would have been a logical step but at that point it wasn't an option.
North Shore News: Why is Living in the Shadows, a project you have been focused on for six years that documents the lives of the Wilcannia people in the Australian outback, so fascinating for you?
David Maurice Smith:: I've always been interested in indigenous issues, indigenous rights, so when I got here I knew it was something I wanted to work on. It's a community that has struggled a lot and the average life expectancy for men is only 37 years old, and this in a country that has one of the highest living standards in the world. The general attitude towards indigenous people in a lot of areas is very shocking. It's a desperate situation. What's happening there is just as dramatic as a lot of the third world countries that I go to. Somalia has a longer male life expectancy than Wilcannia.
North Shore News: What's your next assignment?
David Maurice Smith: I am currently on assignment for the New York Times shooting a story about a species of penguins under threat of extinction from non-native predators in the Southern part of Australia.
