We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Smyth a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amy , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.
I help farmers tell and share their stories of regeneration and the techniques they use to farm without synthetic chemicals. Farmers are some of the hardest working and most important people on our planet. They are our conservationists, with the power to restore our ecosystems and sequester large quantities of carbon. Very few farmers are media savvy with the time and resources to create content. So my job is to come in and help them find their voice and share what they’ve learnt. Our hope is to encourage other farmers to transition away from synthetic chemical agriculture and to adopt no till farming methods.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started my career as a fashion photographer and owned a photography agency for many years. However, my heart was always in using photography to document. Whether it’s a family moment or an issue I believe to be important, I love the photographs ability to capture and share a story. So I sold my agency and went back to school to get a MA in photojournalism and documentary photography. In 2020, my family and I brought and built out a school bus. I started filming to document the build process and this opened up a whole new world for me. I didn’t plan to make films, that just evolved out of the need to capture moments that were important to me. Now I’m proficient in film making I can use it to share others stories. It really helped me to be a photographer first as my films have a cinematic feel to them, which comes from my understanding of light and composition.
Have you ever had to pivot?
My career was taking off as I got more and more pregnant. At 9.5 months pregnant I shot a Levi’s campaign with my assistant propping me up with a stool. When my son was 3 months I was flown to Qatar for a shoot. I had to express milk on the plane. It was a crazy thing to do but the job was too big to turn down. Then my husband came home one day and asked if I’d move to LA. The only catch was I wouldn’t be able to work. We moved and I stayed at home with my son. This was not an easy surrender for someone who loves what they do. I have a few loyal clients who I shot for when I went back to UK. Other than that my career dissipated entirely. After a year on the road in our school bus, we moved to Malibu and I had to start my career again from scratch.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I nearly quit professional photography. I was offered a job doing landscaping and I took it. Getting back on the career ladder felt like too much of a climb and my confidence was low after taking so much time out to have children. Fate had other ideas and the photograph jobs kept rolling in, I let go of the landscaping job and now I’m in full flow. Doing my best to balance motherhood and my creativity, which takes strength and new levels of organisation.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Amysmyth.com
- Instagram: Byamysmyth
- Youtube: Peopleoftheplants
Image Credits
Amy Smyth