page_title: Gary Mark Smith
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Mark Smith / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The September 22,1997 10:46 AM eruption of the Sufriere Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. Español: Desastre causado por el Volcán Soufriere Hills.
context_page_description: Gary Mark Smith is an American street photographer. Smith is noted for his pioneering global range and his empathetic and literal style of photography sometimes captured in extremely hazardous circumstances.
context_section_description: Since launching his career in Autumn 1978, Smith has become recognized as a pioneering global street photographer and has distinguished his method by blurring the line between journalism (documentary) and art.His projects included:
  Cold War’
  Several expeditions to the Cold War inspired guerrilla wars in El Salvador and Guatemala and Nicaragua - moonlighting as a journalist for the University Daily Kansan newspaper and selling combat photography he made on the side as a freelance photographer to the Associated Press, United Press International and other agencies. His accounting of the Streets of Cold War Hot Spots garnered Smith a William Randolph Hearst Award nomination and in December 1991 American Photo magazine named Smith an American Photo Career Photographer in that publication's first ever honors competition.
  "Molten Memoirs’'
  In September 1997 Smith gained access to the 'death zone' of Salem, Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, becoming one of the 200 famous volcano holdouts there who refused to leave until a near-fatal close call eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano on September 22, 1997 finally forced the holdouts to flee. In February 1999 Smith released his first global street photography book, a journal (Molten Memoirs: Essays, Rumors Field Notes and Photographs from the Edge of Fury) about his experience. In November 2000 Smith was honored for his work in Montserrat as an American Photo magazine champion for the second time, as a winner of the “International Reader’s Competition”.
  In July 2009 a portfolio of 45 photographs from Holdout Streets of the Montserrat Volcano Disaster was accessioned into the permanent collection of the Montserrat National Trust.
  Tora Bora: ’’’
  An American Global Street Photographer's Post 9-11 View of the Streets of the Afghanistan/Pakistan Tribal Belt at the Time of Tora Bora.
  Smith's Streets of the Post-9/11 World project including work from: Ground Zero in New York City; the Streets under the air war adjacent to the Battle of Tora Bora; the streets of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border refugee camps; the streets of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan at Peshawar; beyond the Khyber Pass (Mohmand and Khyber Agencies); and to the everyday post-9/11 terror war streets of Las Vegas, Nevada, Paris, France and Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A., his hometown and the only city in North America (Bleeding Kansas) established during a terror war (John Brown; William Quantrill), resulted in his third global street photography book White With Foam: Essays, Rumors, Field Notes and Photographs from the Edge of World War III published online and in June 2009 released as a Kindle Edition.
  The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Flood of New Orleans 
  On September 1, 2005 Smith was sent by the American Red Cross to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the flood of New Orleans, Louisiana, becoming a member of the Red Cross first strike team, helping run undermanned rescue shelters in southern Louisiana on the outskirts of the Flood of New Orleans. During his service he photographed the Flood of New Orleans while on a cat rescue mission afloat down Canal Street and in addition photographed the extreme hurricane surge damage of nearly the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast Highway 90.
  In 2009, eight of the images were accessed into the permanent art collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA).
  Sleeping in the City: Global Street Photography from Inside the Wire.
  
   
  Although called an innovator of citizen journalism for his groundbreaking but risky historical access street photography technique, Smith has furthermore emerged among contemporary street photographers as the pioneer who advanced street photography to a global range.A lifetime mission documenting the streets of the world through his artwork has journeyed Smith to the streets of more than 85 countries on six continents. His photographs from these “everyday global café streets” (thematic and typically lime-lighting the fashion, advertising, and particular place-defining urban elements of a location adorned
caption: Eruption of the Sufriere Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.
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