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Meeting Photographer Terry Smith

Added 2020-02-22 06:31:24 +0000 UTC

Last year I made a trip to New York City to meet one of my favorite photographers, Terry Smith, a 35mm film photographer from San Diego. I got to collect digital versions of some unpublished work and some other classics, and I'm excited to share my favorites with you today. Terry is a fascinating man, and his work greatly inspires me. Read more about Terry's story below, via artfixdaily.

Please follow and support Terry's work at America’s Finest Kids or on instagram @americasfinestkids

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“Is it art, or indecent photography?…” In 2001, Terry Smith hung 51 photographs in a downtown San Diego Starbucks. Nine days after the show opened he was forced to take them down. Although steeped in a desire to facilitate social awareness, Smith’s images make people uncomfortable. His work is powerful, provocative, and outrageously sexualized. The gritty, raw nature of Smith’s images - young men, street kids, punks, juvenile delinquents - depicts a class of society the average person doesn’t consider beautiful. These are “lost” kids that Smith describes as “all tore up inside.” He funnels a genuine passion for these boys into his art, creating profound and sometime disturbing images of these young men. Smith explains that, “I simply want to celebrate the beauty and strength found in the young American male.”

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1962, Smith grew up in a Christian home and even sang in the church choir. In the 1980s Smith became involved in social work as a missionary for his church and with juvenile delinquents at shelters in L.A and San Diego. He started photographing local teenage surfer and skater kids and in an attempt to show that, despite their outward appearance, these “damaged” kids are all beautiful. His resulting photography essay is deeply personal and emotional. Smith’s been photographing Americas's Finest Kids for 15 years.

Smith’s images are reminiscent of the stark documentary reality of Larry Clark, the sexuality of Bruce Weber and the erotic street photography of Herbert List.