Last month I had the amazing opportunity to spend 6 days in Lagos, Nigeria, on assignment. The main body of work is embargoed and won’t be released for a few months. In the mean-time here’s some portraits I took of some Nigerian Truckers when I had 30 minutes down-time. There is such an amazing diversity of tribes and backgrounds within Nigeria represented by this single queue of driver’s waiting patiently to receive their cargo.
LAGOS, NIGERIA – NOVEMBER 5TH, 2012: Truck drivers from across the 32 Nigerian states wait patiently to fill their trailers with fuel at a tank farm in the port of Lagos. Despite being the world’s fifth largest producer of crude oil Nigeria lacks refineries and as such has volatile availability and prices of oil products. (Photo by Toby Smith/Reportage by Getty Images)
Cinematic Showreel from Toby Smith on Vimeo.
A cinematic show-reel combining footage shot over the last 3 years of my career. Many of the clips echo my large format compositions and were captured during personal projects or assignments across the world.
Locations include Scotland, England, China, India and Madagascar. Music is “The Great Drive By” by Funki Porcini and is licensed from Ninja Tune (UK) whilst the edit and grade was done by Daren Nair here in London.
Please contact me for any further information on the projects, assignments or indeed licensing of existing footage. Technically the work is either Time Lapse or HD Video captured on a Canon 5d Mkii.
Broadcast Showreel – All from Toby Smith on Vimeo.
So I finally bit the bullet and bought myself an iPad. (Groan). I concluded rapidly that it is useless for “doing” anything but for “viewing” content the screen and ergonomics work very well. Certain media providers; Intelligent Life, Guardian, Sunday Times, WIRED, BJP (to name but a few) have made genuinely browse-able and interactive content. I was particular excited when browsing through National Geographic (August Issue) to spot a feature image I was commissioned for back in February. A wild-goose chase into the secretive world of second hand phone booths led us to an architectural grave-yard full chock-fill of 100’s of the old K-9 model. Gallons of hot-tea and kilos of human sand-bags led to a great shot that I am very proud of:
I had to hide behind the sofa with fear last night as I made another appearance on TV. This year I was selected to compete in the BBC2 series “Show me the Monet”. The name sets the standard of the jokes but this masks the brutal nature of the TV program. A panel of judges, the hanging committee, vote on a piece of your artwork and its potential inclusion at prestigious show at the Mall Galleries, London. I was (un)fortunate enough to be voted through into the exhibition and to sell my piece of work, Ratcliffe on Soar, above list price.
I’m also really pleased to be selling prints of my Olympic Park project exclusively through Eyestorm. Their Creative Director, Angie Davey, has written a really nice introduction that responds to my own essay on the project. Both the 5×4 and X-Pan shots are available for collectors.
2 weeks ago, I delivered a 2 hour seminar at The Conservation Leadership MPhil at Cambridge. I entitled the lecture ” The Relationship between Media, Audience and NGO’s.
As I am currently researching and developing ideas for my next personal project I feel it important to brainstorm and network outside the box. It is also essential to constantly evaluate the relationships between my Photography and Media outlets so that I may better partner with story material or organisations. The constant need to monetise my photography and indeed career is sometimes very frustrating. Therefore it was refreshing and inspiring to justify the time and reason to research and actually read material beyond photography and visual debate.
The group at Cambridge represented a fantastic breadth of knowledge and importantly experience in the practical front-line of conservation issues globally. It was a privilege that my experiences in media was the basis of a seminar and an asset to them. I’ve listed below a selection of the media and research links that came up in conservation. Much of the discussion from both sides was quite critical so probably best I don’t repeat too much of it here..
Photographic Resources and Introduction
www.reportagebygettyimages.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnnh
Media (Photography) Resources
http://www.copyright4clients.com/
Environmental Media Resources
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/earth/index.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment// (Paywalled)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/green/
http://www.time.com/time/goinggreen
http://www.economist.com/topics/environmental-problems-and-protection
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/
Alternative Funding
Globally Popular Environmental Photographers of Note
(not exhaustive!!)
http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/
http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org/en/index/home
http://www.lifewithoutlights.com/#/about-the-project
NGO’s Featured in the Lecture