Photo District News has recognized BRIANSMITH.COM for Outstanding Web Design in the 2011 PDN Photo Annual Awards feature in June issue of PDN.

BIG SHOUTOUT to my pal Rob Haggart of APhotoFolio.com for creating such versatile and an easy interface. How easy? Well…the night before the deadline for this year’s competition, I decided my website could use some updating and in just a bit over an hour I was able to change the colors, sizes and layout to completely redo the look of my website to create the winning design. SWEEEEET!

Congratulations to all the 2011 PDN Photo Annual Awards winners.

And a drumroll please…Six of my Burlesque portraits won in the Celebrity/Editorial Portrait Category of PDN’s Faces 2010 Competition. The July 2010 Photo District News includes photos of Candy Carmelo and Kitten DeVille. The rest of the winning entry includes Dirty Martini, Roxi DLite,  April March and the Chicago Starlets. My thanks to the lovely and talented Burlesque dancers. Take a bow ladies!

EQUIPMENT:
Sony a900 Cameras
Sony Zeiss 24-70/2.8
Profoto 2400 Acute 2
X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
X-Rite i1 Xtreme

Click here for a Behind-the-Scenes look at one of my burlesque shoots.

BIG THANKS to the Best of ASMP 2009 for this sweet profile of my ‘Art & Soul’ project. Great interview by PDN’s Jill Waterman with the background how the project came together and how The Creative Coalition has been able to use the project to successfully lobby for increased funding of the arts and arts education.

WWW.BRIANSMITH.COM was recognized for outstanding Website Design by the judges of the 2008 AltPick Awards competition.

The AltPick Awards jury included:

Laurie Kratochvil, Freelance Photo Editor, New York, NY
Evan Kriss, Photo Editor, The Washington Post, Washington D.C.
Carolyn Rausch, Photo Editor, WIRED, San Francisco, CA
Rob Beckon, Art Buyer, 72andSunny, El Segundo, CA
Cindy Rowe, Manager/Art Production, Saatchi & Saatchi, Torrance CA
Jimmy Collins, Associate Creative Director, Hills Holiday Advertising, Inc, New York, NY
Jason Cochrane, Creative Director, Keltie+Cochrane, Newcastle, England
Matthew Richmond, Web Designer, The Chopping Block, New York, NY

Even though I photograph famous athletes like Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade, more often I get the call to shoot more unusual aspects of sport like the Gatorade scientists, female boxers or 80-year-old surfers. With the possible exception of the Olympics, my favorite sports shoot of all time was a shoot that I did for Miriam Marseu of Sports Illustrated on Nudist Golf. We had a couple hours over two days to shoot on a tiny nine-hole pitch and putt golf course at one of Florida’s oldest Naturist Resorts just down the road from Disneyworld.

Of course the real challenge was keeping all the naughty bits hidden so that it could actually appear in a magazine that annually finds ways to hide the naughty bits of 6’4” 19-year-old supermodels in their highly touted “Sports Illustrated I Forgot to Wear My Swimsuit Issue.”