Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Darius Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Darius, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I release all of my photos and art under the alias of Prxject Ghoul. The entire idea behind the character of Ghoul is that he is the representation of the most raw and unfiltered version of myself, and the physical manifestation of all of the things I feel inside. A way to physically display who I feel like I am inside, but without the bounds of societal standards or concerns of judgement.

When we navigate the world, we hold so many things back and filter ourselves so that we are as palatable as possible to everyone around us; but I feel like we then end up becoming disconnected from ourselves. Prxject Ghoul let’s me maintain that connection to the most inner parts of myself and gives me a way to express things that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to express, and connect with people in a way that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

Ghoul is simultaneously fiction enough to separate the art from myself to be enjoyed and connected with organically, while also being the most genuine I feel I could ever be

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Art and specifically photography have always been huge parts of my life. Growing up, I was never great at expressing myself, and negative emotions were shunned very heavily in my family. As a kid I was always drawing and taking pictures whenever and wherever, and people would tell me all the time that I had a very unique style whenever I showed anything I made. When I got to high school I got introduced to photography in an actual structured setting, as well as taking a photoshop course; so I got to learn how to take and edit better photos, and graphic design.

My life got extremely hard during the time of my high school career; I was dealing with deaths of close friends and family, financial struggles, I had been cheated on by my high school love, and I unfortunately ended up getting involved with drugs. By the time it was time for me to graduate, my grades had slipped dramatically, I was severely depressed and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with myself after barely managing to make it through with everything going on in my life. I hadn’t been taking any pictures or making any designs, but I knew that was the last time time that I had actually been able to feel anything in any capacity without needing drugs to cope, so I decided to force myself back into creating.

I actually decided to start a clothing brand using photoshop to make different designs, and it did much better than I could have ever thought it was going to. It not only let me get my money right, and get better equipment to create with, but it made me fall in love with creating again with the added bonus of now knowing that people actually cared about and could relate to the things I was making.

Eventually I ended up dropping back from the clothing brand because I realized I was only passionate about the art that I was making and the pictures I was taking for the clothes, and not actually growing in the fashion industry. Even though I had stopped making clothes, I had made connections with different models and other brand owners, so I was able to transition into taking photos for fashion photography. Fashion photography really opened up my eyes to creative photo taking and the act of actually telling a story with my photos.

I had always been good at connecting and creating things based around my feelings, but taking photos for other people allowed me to actually develop the skills to actually tell stories that people could connect to, and to be ale to “create” ways for people to view my world through my eyes. I developed the character Prxject Ghoul completely separate from myself as a way to externalize a lot of the pain I was feeling in my life but without anyone knowing it was me so I didn’t have to face any of the stigmas or reactions of the world to such vulnerability. Ghoul was a mask to the world but over time I realized just how much I actually felt like Ghoul no matter what, and I didn’t care what that meant to the world so I adopted it as my alias.

Prxject Ghoul is everything that I am, and everything that I have been turned into, for better or for worse. It allows me to truly be in tune with myself, while also having a way to not get lost in myself. This Prxject has allowed me to connect with people who think or feel like I do, or to people who just appreciate me as an artist, so I don’t feel as alone in this world and I can give that feeling to others. Prxject Ghoul allows me to create visuals from my own world, and help others do the same

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My end goal as Prxject Ghoul is to be a creative director and help creatives execute those big projects that they have envisioned. I’ve learned so much on my creative journey in the realm of what it actually takes to make dream projects a reality, whether that be networking and team building, or the smaller logistical details that come in to play with visual content.

I feel like access to that kind of information, or even individuals with certain skillsets could help so many creatives ‘both reach their dream goals and create game changing projects

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I really could’ve grasped earlier just how actually in reach a lot of things are in terms of execution when you actually have a solid network of determined individuals. We see a lot of these huge company backed projects or releases from big named artists and it doesn’t feel like that’s something that average person can do; but even if you just have a small team of people that really love what they’re doing then you’re on the right track.

That’s a huge part of what I do now as a content creator, I try and connect people and actually put the passions we have down on paper first, then onto our portfolios

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/prxjectghoul
• Other: Instagram threads: PrxjectGhoul