Max Smith: Creative boundaries & posting daily
INTRODUCTION
Max Smith is a 23-year old photographer, currently working as a Lighting Technician, based in London - where you’ll find him wandering around, capturing his surroundings! His practice has evolved over the years from commercial advertising to portraits and now predominantly analogue medium. He started photography in his early teens before going on to graduate from the University of Portsmouth with a degree in photography in 2018.
This interview took place at The Barbican Centre, London, March 2020, just before the Coronavirus pandemic forced the UK into lockdown.
Max had such a great story to share, we split the interview into two parts. Read part one of our interview with Max here.
Was university a positive experience for you?
University for me was something that kept me motivated. I think If I didn’t go, it would have been a lot harder. I would have got too comfortable at home and not been driven to do what I really wanted. Originally I was never going to go to university. I was looking at apprenticeships, but there wasn’t really anything for photography.
I don’t know if it was just me but I did find it restrictive sometimes. A friend of mine is now doing his MA at The Royal College of Art (RCA) and says he loves it because there are no boundaries. It was hard at times to adapt my style and how I know I like to take pictures to meet their criteria and get good marks.
We did a lot of conceptual work at Portsmouth, which helped us to understand the meaning behind our pictures and why we do it. This has definitely helped me. Before I took pictures just because it looked nice. Now I think a lot more about why I'm taking the specific picture. There’s a project I'm working on now and the picture might look good but there is meaning behind it.
I think if I never went to university I wouldn’t be doing the stuff I am doing now. I might still be doing photography but not with the same approach. Even the things I would never usually do, I have now found a love for. So, overall it was a good experience for me.
“It was hard at times to adapt my style and how I know I like to take pictures to meet their criteria and get good marks. ”
What advice would you give to someone still at university?
Think and plan ahead. It’s easy to get stuck living the university life, going out, drinking, waking up late and only going to lectures when you need to. What helped me was planning and working before I graduated. A lot of people said they were going to wait until after their graduation to start applying for jobs.
How did university help you prepare and find a job?
Like I said about my work experience [in Part 1], that was part of a self-promotion unit, where we also started building our websites and making LinkedIn pages and so on. A lot of the time, we’d do these things half-assed just to meet the criteria. But then I decided to work on my website and social media platforms to make them as good as possible. I knew one day I was going to need it and it worked to my favour. A lot of people didn’t do that, they did it because they had to for the course. I am actually starting to see those people doing it now, which is good, but they should have started earlier.
© Max Smith 2020
Would you say you have a style on instagram?
Now it’s mainly all film but before it was a mixture between film and digital. I think my style has developed over the last three years. I used to do everything digitally and never touch film. My style changes I guess, based on whatever I'm currently into. I went through a phase of loving architecture photography and just went out shooting buildings all day. I remember at uni I did a series of shots of the Portsmouth library, I was so happy with them but they contrasted my usual work.
There’s so much stuff I don’t put on Instagram. In a weird and cringey way I have the thought process of “yeah that’s worthy of going on Instagram”. I think it’s because I like my Instagram to act like a portfolio for people to look at as well as my website.
Do you ever experience or struggle with Imposter Syndrome?
I struggle with social media. I struggle to keep up to date with it all. Sometimes I won’t post for a month and it used to get to me. I thought I had to post everyday in order to be relevant to people. Now I have found a place where I am really happy with what I manage to share. If I don’t post for a month then I don’t really care. The people who follow me, follow me because they like my pictures, not because I post every day. At university I thought, in order to get a job I had to look good on Instagram and if I had 50,000 followers, people are going to think “wow this guy is good”. Which I guess is still the case for some people.
“I thought I had to post everyday in order to be relevant to people. Now I have found a place where I am really happy with what I manage to share.”
We want to encourage and make you accountable for a new project, so what are you going to put out into the world in 2020?
I’m currently working on a project based on a HS2 (High Speed 2 railway) site, which I am hoping to get finished this year. I’m basically following a group of protestors who have been living in a field where it’s being built, near to where I live. There’s a public footpath that goes between two fields, and HS2 has to put a gas pipe running beneath. To do this they have to go across the path. Because it is public the protestors are camping there which has prevented the construction to take place for the last two years.
They have created a sort of community over time. People come and visit them. Their way of life is so different to how we live. They have their own charging tent built with solar panels to power their electronics. It’s all very hippyish, but really interesting.
Have you experienced any confrontation whilst on-site?
Oh yeah there’s been loads of stuff. Because I work full time now, I can only really go on weekends, but during the week some crazy stuff happens. I would see them on the weekends and some would have black eyes, some arrested, it’s all quite crazy. There was this one time when I went, a new group of people were visiting from Manchester. One of the girls was really suspicious of me taking pictures. The people who I met before were cool with me, but I don’t think she was. She asked if I wanted to join them on a hike somewhere. When we arrived there was an area which we weren’t allowed to go in and she said if I took pictures I could get them in trouble. I told her I’m not going to get you in any trouble because I’m on your side. She was really intense, I never saw her again.
© Max Smith 2020
Are you keeping those images on the down low at the moment? What’s the plan?
I am yeah, I want it to all be finished before I put anything out there. I’d like to turn it into a book project and get it published. Where I work now I meet so many different people and have been introduced to some small publishers. Hopefully I can submit it somewhere and start getting a few copies made.
What’s your process with something like this?
I think everyone has their own process. For me I like to gather everything and then think about the best storyline. I have recorded conversations with the protestors and had people share their stories with me that I note down. One of the main guys walked me around and told me the whole history of the camp. I want to try and capture all this. It’s in the news so much at the moment, I just want to share their side of the story and show it to people because we don’t get to hear it.
The detail and research element to your photography process must definitely set you apart and strengthen your approach.
Yeah I guess so. When I started the project I was just gathering as much material as possible. I didn’t necessarily know what I wanted to achieve, I just knew I wanted it to become a project. A lot of the time I have to stop to think before I take a photo. It’s easy to just shoot what’s “good” instead of what is actually happening in front of me.
“A lot of the time I have to stop to think before I take a photo. It’s easy to just shoot what’s “good” instead of what is actually happening in front of me.”
Recommended reading
Read This If You Want To Take Great Photographs of Places by Henry Carroll
Recommended listening
The Film Photography Podcast by Michael Raso
Recommended follow
Follow Max
Instagram: @_mhjs
Twitter: @_mhjs
Website: www.maxhj.com
If you’d like to reach out to Max, DM him on Instagram or drop him an email to: max@maxhj.com
