It's All ‘A Day in the Life' of Rick Smolan '72

From the cover of TIME to the far reaches of cyberspace .

By Pete Taft '73

Look tough, I thought.

After all, I was supposed to. I was captain of the Dickinson lacrosse team, having my picture taken for some spring publicity event. Yet my mind kept wandering to the scraggly-haired photographer snapping like a madman—Rasputin with a Nikon.

He was intense. He was talkative. He was confident. More important, he was good. and he was, I judged even then, someone who was going to make it big. I was right. He was Rick Smolan.

Since that spring day in 1973, I've had the pleasure of bumping into Rick Smolan '72 on and off throughout my life and career. We both lived in Australia —a country that helped shape his life and work—in the early 1980s. We later shared small talk on a street corner in New York , where I'd heard photographers speak highly of him.

And more recently, as I entered my comments in the guestbook of a secluded Balinese resort, I found a scrawled note from the peripatetic photographer-turned-entrepreneur, congratulating the innkeepers on a job well done. I'd just missed him by a week or two.

But like most of us, I've come to know Smolan best through a quarter-century of his creative work—work that changed the nature of photojournalism and is now blazing new trails in cyberspace.

Smolan began his career crisscrossing the Pacific Rim for Time , Life and National Geographic , landing numerous cover pieces and slowly making a name for himself. In 1981, he assembled 100 of the world's leading photographers to capture A Day in the Life of Australia , a coffee-table book that launched not only a series of volumes by the same name (covering Japan, Hawaii, the USSR, Canada, Spain, California and America), but Smolan's international reputation as well.

Since selling his Day in the Life production company to Rupert Murdoch in 1986, Smolan has been exploring the deep reaches of cyberspace and becoming the wired world's guru of photography in the process.

In 1990 he began consulting for Eastman Kodak's Professional Photography Division; a year later he published the first photography book to include a CD-ROM, From Alice to Ocean , which chronicled one woman's solo journey across Australia by camel.

In 1995, the Chicago Sun-Times hailed Smolan's Passage to Vietnam compact disc as “the best CD-ROM ever produced,” and similar national accolades followed his 1996 production, 24 Hours in Cyberspace , which captured a day in the life on the Internet. BYTE magazine, for example, declared the project “the most elaborate journalistic experiment in history.”

I suppose, like other members of the class of 1973, I feel a bit selfish about Rick and his talents. He was always our photographer, chronicling what seemed to be every day of our lives at Dickinson . We took joy in seeing his work appear, both in The Dickinsonian and the school yearbook; no subject seemed too dull for him, no personality escaped his knowing lens. In essence, he captured our memories—and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude.

So it was a delight to finally reach the ever-busy Smolan via car phone as he zoomed about Sausalito, Calif.,—home of his production company, Against All Odds—in search of someone to fix his Macintosh PowerBook before leaving for Miami the next day.

Garrulous and witty, Smolan began by recounting the time when, as a freshly minted graduate and Dickinson's campus photographer, he traveled to New York to storm the offices of Life , brashly insisting that he be included among the 100 photographers who would cover a single day in America for an upcoming special edition of the magazine. But Smolan's efforts were nearly thwarted by the editor's persistent secretary, who denied him access.

So it looked pretty grim?

Yeah. Then, as I was pushing the down button on the elevator I kept thinking, “Every time I've ever seen this scene in a movie the hero always did something just at this moment.” And I thought, “What would I do if I were in a movie?”

What did you do?

Well, I decided to go back and show her some of my pictures; I knew it wasn't going to work, but at least I could tell my friends that I tried.

So I showed her some photographs I'd taken of old people at the Molly Pitcher Hotel [in Carlisle ]. My hands were shaking; I was feeling so stupid. Then some guy walks out of an office and says, “These are really nice. What are you doing here?” And I just sort of exploded. “I came all the way from my college to talk to the editor of Life ,” I said “and no one will give me the time of day!” And he said, “Calm down! I'll show them to him.”

And did you get the assignment?

Well, about an hour later, the editor, John Loengard, takes me into his office and says, “Look, we already have all the photographers hired. Why don't you go take some pictures and maybe we'll look at them?” And I remember thinking, “This may be the only chance I'm ever going to have to work for Life. ”

So I took a deep breath and then said, “Mr. Leongard, I have always dreamed of working for Life , and I would love to be one of the official photographers on this project. I think I can photograph what college life is like. Just give me a chance.”

What happened?

He looked at me for about 15 seconds, and I remember thinking, “I really blew this,” Then a little smile curled up on his face and he said, “Well I guess it wouldn't bankrupt Time-Life if we made it 101 photographers.” The next thing I knew, I'd been hired.

One of your shots that made that special issue was of a young Dickinson couple taking a shower together—pretty controversial for its time. What kind of reaction did you get?

Well, the first phone call I got was from my mother, who bought every copy of Life in Cedar Grove , New Jersey . The second call was from the dean of admissions at Dickinson , asking if I had any idea of what I had done to the fundraising efforts for the year because every parent was calling, upset about that photograph.

But all the reviews of that special issue mentioned that photograph as a much gutsier picture than they had ever seen before in Life . That opened the doors for me. I got hired by Time , and a year later I was sent to Hong Kong, then Japan , and then Australia . I often wondered what would have happened had I not come back from that elevator!

How did your experience as a professional differ from your experience shooting at Dickinson ?

One of the pleasures of studying and working at Dickinson was being able to shoot pictures, have them developed, and get that instant feedback. I was shocked when I was first hired by Time . They expected me to ship my film back undeveloped, and I wouldn't see it for eight or nine months at a time because they just kept me on the road.

And that was mostly through Asia ?

Right. I was part of a little agency called Contact. They called and said, “ Time has asked if you want to live with the Tokyo police force for a month and do a series on human behavior.” I said, “Great!”

So for about four years I traveled and lived in hotels, and I loved it. It was like Mission Impossible : I'd fly somewhere— Bangkok , for instance—and meet someone who would tell me what the next assignment was. It was great. Every time I was about to leave, someone gave me another assignment.

Pretty glamorous. Was there a downside?

It does sound very glamorous, but it is very lonely out there. I was always kind of shy; the camera was a way for me to appear aggressive. It's very uncomfortable to show up in a new city every day; every relationship, whether a friendship or a love affair, lasted about five days and I had to leave.

But after a while I kept running into other photographers and I discovered that they were my family. We'd get together and talk shop, talk about what it's like to be alone and on the road. I made some really terrific friends, and they became the one continuity in my life.

How did you decide to do your first book, A Day in the Life of Australia ?

One night a bunch of us were in a bar in Bangkok talking about how we got started. I told them about being hired for that Life special issue, and someone said, “Yeah, we should do something like that and get some photographers together and go off and shoot a day in the life of some country.” And someone else said, “Yeah, Smolan, you're the guy who worked on it. Why don't you organize it?” Well, I could barely add up my expense account, let alone organize anything. But somewhere this whole idea got handed to me.

How hard was it to pull together?

I went off thinking I'd go to a bunch of publishers and they'd give me the money to do it. I didn't know how any of it worked. So I went to all these publishers and they laughed me out of their offices.

They said, “Rick, what a stupid idea. Why would somebody pay fifty dollars for a book of photographs of complete strangers, taken on a day that nothing happened, in some godforsaken country on the other side of the world? What's the appeal of that?”

So how did you finally get the idea off the ground?

I was photographing the prime minister of Australia , who by that time had actually become a friend. And he said, “Why don't you pitch this to corporations as sponsorships? They always have empty seats, empty bedrooms, empty cars you can use. You can put their names on the front page.” He made some introductions for me. I went out and I must have met with 400 companies. Six finally said yes.

What was the idea that actually sold?

We were going to spread photographers around the country, thematically and geographically. My hope, though, was that they would scrap our assignments and find real life out there—something better than anything we could dream up sitting in our offices.

That obviously happened, and with incredible success—after all, you built a whole business around the Day in the Life series.

Yes, but I never built an organization or structure that was permanent. We basically would build a whole company (for each book) and then throw it away. That probably came from a certain amount of claustrophobia also on my part—not wanting to ever think I was a businessman. I always saw this as temporary, and that I would go back to being a photographer. And of course, that never happened.

What's your company like now?

(Laughs) It's me and seven women. They're all my bosses, including my wife (Jennifer Erwitt, daughter of world-famous photographer Elliott Erwitt, a hero of Smolan's), who's my partner.

The company is called Against All Odds because I am sort of attracted to things (about which) everybody says, “Oh, that will never work.” There's a certain measure of masochism involved in this also. I like the problem-solving. I get bored really quickly. The moment I know how to do something, I don't want to do it again.

So what's next for you?

I think we're going to do “16 in America ”—what it's like to be a 16-year-old. We're going to see if we can get 10,000 kids of every conceivable economic and social background equipped with cameras, handicams, tape recorders, 800 phone numbers, all interviewing each other. We've been talking to Peter Jennings about doing an hour special, and there's a lot of interest on the part of all the newsmagazines because everyone's trying to understand what the next generation is going to be like.

Film, motion pictures, seems like such a natural progression for you. Any plans to do a movie?

Well, we're negotiating with New Line Cinema about a Robert Heinlein novel (to which) I own the rights. It's called Tunnel in the Sky , and it's about a group of teen-agers being trained to colonize new planets. For the graduation exercise, they're sent to a planet they know nothing about. They have only one weapon, and they have to survive. But something goes wrong and they never get picked up—sort of Lord of the Flies in outer space.

Looking back, who or what at Dickinson was most influential in your development?

Dennis Akin, an art professor. He let me do my own photography major, which Dickinson didn't have.

The first major I tried was Spanish; then I decided to study psychology, but the college didn't have a clinical program. So Dennis came to my rescue. He gave me really good feedback, even though I don't think he knew much about photography. What he did was encourage me to go buy the books of photographers who I admired and figure out what I liked about them---people like Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt. With Dennis, it was all about the art, never the technique.

How has your field changed since then?

One of the sad things that started happening toward the end of my career as a photographer is that more and more of the publications that used to say, “Go out and tell us what you find,” are saying, “Go out and illustrate this idea; make sure you come back with something we can use that says this.” That was never what journalism was all about. More and more I felt that I and my friends were asked to be illustrators, not journalists.

And the role of cyberspace?

Well, what's ironic is that exactly as this trend is occurring and all the picture publications are disappearing— Look and Life , for instance—suddenly the World Wide Web and interactive media comes along, and photographers now have almost infinite room to tell their stories. Suddenly, photographers can self-publish in a way that has never been possible before, to a worldwide audience, with no paper, printing, or postage—which is really extraordinary.

What's remained constant?

I still think the same creative elements are necessary. You want to engage people's emotions. Whether it's digital or analog or CD or pages of a book, unless you get someone to have an emotional reaction, then you've failed. Because otherwise, it's just technique, and who cares about technique? Ordinary, everyday life can be fascinating, if you put it in the right perspective.

I would imagine that, as a photographer, your memories of college and your early years must be particularly strong.

The memories I have are very strong because my college years are preserved. Remember, I've seen all of you for 25 years! You all are sort of frozen in time in my mind. There are pictures [of you] in my library, and every now and then I go through them.

Any regrets?

(Laughs). What's that old joke about youth being wasted on the young? I basically did as little as I had to get through Dickinson . I learned a lot through photography, but I wish I had spent a lot more time reading. I wish I had time to go back to school, because there are so many things I want to learn about.

I think we're all finding out that you spend your whole life learning because the world of work is changing so rapidly. The only regret I guess I have is that I didn't make use of the opportunities that I had—but I don't know that you ever know that until afterward.

This article originally appeared in the spring 1997 issue of Dickinson Magazine , page10.

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