Rick Smith

March 2026 / Resolute Bay, Nunavut, Canada // I often worry about time. Will I be late? When will we lose the light? Will we get all the scenes shot? It is not unusual for someone in my line of work to be fixated on the clock - to be an expert in cramming a neatly layed out excel sheet production schedule into the chaotic bent of reality. While useful in the realm of shot lists and airport ticketing counters, my temporal fixation is counterproductive in places like Resolute Bay which are resistant to the controlling desires of production and industry. Barry Lopez’s writings about how a “fiduciary sense of time” is detrimental to one’s experience and understanding in the arctic would prove to be relevant. Early on in our trip, as we faced some logistical delays, Clay read us a passage from “Arctic Dreams” where Lopez offers advice on how to successfully travel and comprehend the landscape of the arctic. The jist of it is that to move across the vastness of the far north, one needs to reconfigure one’s relationship to time. His carefully worded advice is sort of an Einsteinian take on the linkage of time and space. Suggesting that if one gives up the structured and calculated sense of time, the true nature of the arctic’s landscape will be revealed. We tried to shift our perspective like a raven calls out a raptor, by constantly talking about Lopez’s passage and how our anxiety was a product of this “fiduciary” sense of time. In the end, despite our efforts, we couldn’t shake our trepidations. We worried about how long it would take us to travel back to Resolute on the last day of the trip, about whether we had time to pack and whether we would make the last flight out, about hotel bookings and cargo schedules. Thankfully, despite our southerly fixations, there were moments where each of us were able to put aside our temporality and experience the frozen expanse of the arctic for what it is. A place where there is comfort in the long lasting glow of twilight, a lack of malevolence to the cold, and a timelessness to the sight of dogs pulling a sled across the horizon. @clay_newcomb @dirtmyth @thunderrexyz @sheldon.oqallak.42 @kojak.ephraim @meateater

February 2026 / Yellowstone National Park // I have been working on projects in Yellowstone for close to 20 years. And if there is anything to ever know about working there is that is going to be colder than expected. Cold in the summer. Cold in the fall. And even cold during an otherwise warm winter. So when the forecasts were calling for moderate temps a week out I ironically didn’t heed my own advice. Brought my zero degree bag rather than my real heavy duty winter bag. Forecast changed. Temps dropped to 10 below zero. While more annoying than life threatening, sleeping cold isn’t restful. Mark Kenyon @wiredtohunt , Casey Anderson @grizzlyguy , Maggie Genet @theloneloon , Riley McClaughry @Riley.mcclaughry and myself spent a couple days getting off the road, sleeping in the snow and tracking wolves for an upcoming @meateater film. Producer Jason Roehrig @jasvanroe and cinematographer Dawson Dunning @3bearsmedia shot broll and spotted from the road. Easy to think of Yellowstone as some sort of driving zoo until you get a half dozen miles from a trailhead. It’s as vast as it is wild. Not surprisingly we didn’t encounter anyone else out there. @firstlitehunting @hilleberg_the_tentmaker @meateater

Dec 2019 / Papua New Guinea // The short lived streaming service Quibi doesn’t exist anymore. Thankfully these BTS shots still do. @zacefron @erikosterholm @pablo_durana @lucforsyth @nickbrigden @brian.d.whitlock

2010 / MSU Science & Natural History MFA Program // Here is my thesis film in its entirety. I was asked during my defense why my film wasn’t fascist even though it had aesthetic parallels to the 1938 film Olympia directed by Leni Riefenstahl for Nazi propaganda. Not the question I expected and I am sure I stuttered my way through an answer which was something about how that @colinruggiero and his hyperreal archetypal masculinity gets digitally dissolved by the end. While impossible to untangle the fascist origins and subtext of the film, Olympia is a stunning and innovative piece of cinema history thats worth a watch.

2010 / MSU Science & Natural History MFA Program // When I decided to pursue a career in film I really had no idea what that might look like. After a year or two in grad school I felt overwhelmed by the filmmaking process. With little to no previous training in the arts the learning curve couldn’t have felt steeper. While I pursued a message board (DVXUser) mediated technical education the formal humanities part of my grad education took a back seat to paying gigs. As time was running out on completing my degree requirements I scrambled to put together a thesis film. While I had begin producing and shooting traditional non-fiction docs for conservation non-profits I decided to lean into a thesis film that pushed an experimental aesthetic and eschewed any documentary convention. I roped in fellow MFAer @colinruggiero as a model, rented a phantom slow motion camera and created a film and set of stills inspired by Anton Giulio Bragaglia and the Italian Futurists.

November 2025 / Idaho // Joined @olcal406 for a late-season muzzleloader elk hunt. Often hunts with the MeatEater crews are a little unwieldy - couple of folks in front of the camera, a producer, couple camera-operators, a photographer and a dedicated long lens shooter and before you know it you have a less than stealthy scrum. For this shoot it was just Cal and myself. Even so, Cal had his work cut out - closing the gap to 100 yard on a mature bull and getting that muzzleloader to go off. Conditions were variable - rain, sleet, snow, sun. Given the task at hand it was unsurprisingly one of the hardest physical shoots I have been on in years - an unrelenting steepness of terrain combined with a wet cold and some post-holing for good measure. The last photo in the series is as we were hiking out on the last evening and we were running on fumes. Although we didn’t take an animal off the mountain, we were in the mix and had some great all day stalks. Cal loves a hard day in the woods and takes pleasure in the effort itself. Certainly a valuable trait for his next role as he attempts to grind out wins in the political arena. Starting next year Cal will be taking over as President and CEO of @backcountryhunters . BHA and all of us that enjoy our wild places are lucky to have him leading the fight against the anti-public land sentiment and legislation bubbling up in congress. @meateater @sonyalpha @sonycine @sigsauerhunting @firstlitehunting #leica35mmf2 #sonya7iv #blackandwhite

April 2024 / Cooper, TX // Finally got around to going through some images from an eclipse chasing trip I took last year with Michelle, my good buddies Todd @toddyp_obs and his wife Tuyen @tumbleweed2yen and their kids. Headed to Austin for the weekend, ate a fantastic meal at @daidue , walked along the river, and watched the bats emerge downtown. However, the overcast weather forecast made us nervous and we ended up an hour northwest of Dallas to make sure we had an unobstructed view of the sky. The conditions were touch and go but the partially cloudy conditions helped create some interesting compositions. Needless to say, the celestial show didn’t disappoint.

July 2025 / Luganzo Game Reserve Tanzania // Despite several trips to east Africa and Tanzania over the past few years, I had never experienced anything like this. Far from the hoards of safari tourists and the open grass plains of the Serengeti, amongst the little known Miombo woodlands, I got eaten alive by tsetse flies, ground down by hours in the trucks and was frustrated by spooky game. Despite the challenges I was ultimately inspired by stalking about in the bush with @morganpotterhunting @g_dodds and the supernatural team of Tanzanian trackers. Joined by an allstar @meateater team consisting of @sethmorris_45 @corinnesschneider @cinnamonbungirl and long time MeatEater cam-ops and buddies Chris Gill and @dirtmyth . I feel fortunate that I had the chance to step out of my comfort zone to explore Tanzania's model of trophy hunting based conservation and explore what hunting concessions like @robin_hurt_safaris have to offer to wildlife and habitat conservation in the region.

June 2025 / Alaska // Been a minute since I joined in on a backcountry @MeatEater hunt. Easy to forget the invigorating discomfort of packing camp and kit on your back and wandering about in the rain with electronics. One of my favorite aspects of doc camera work is the way that it demands an increased awareness. Not unlike the hunters themselves working to glass up success. Steve was joined by guest Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadors. Producer Sam Bates, Cam-op Conrad Piper-Ruth, AC Chilly Chleborad, and Photographer Seth Morris made sure we content created to the best of our abilities. Host @stevenrinella Guest @felkersongs Producer @cinnamonbungirl Cam-Op @cpiperruth AC @esconaba_in_the_moonlight Photographer @sethmorris_45

Human Footprint / 2024 News & Doc Emmy Nominee for Outstanding Science & Technology Doc // Very proud of this series nomination and the work we all put in. The quality of a show that @daysedge put together for their debut series is impressive and it required everybody to push the boundaries of their capabilities. And any lack of experience was met with a healthy dose of grit and determination. DaysEdge co-owners and series co-directors @natedappen and @neil.losin are doers and through both their talents and sheer force of will they made the series what it is. Host @shane.campbellstaton put in an insane amount of time in the field to translate the science and tell the stories from his POV and gave the series much needed pathos. Given that he has a full time gig @princeton , spending nearly 1/3 of the year on the road with a bunch of film nerds speaks to his unfaltering commitment. In many ways this is the show that I always wanted to help make. Science, adventure, conservation & culture. And each previous show I have worked on helped push my skills to where they are now. Production experiences from shows like America The Wild, MeatEater, Business of Drugs, The Last Artifact, Connected and Nomad all played a part in creating a look for this series - as well as the production skills to make it happen with a small crew. Personally speaking I owe much to my fellow creatives and DP colleagues that I have learned from over the years - @christophergill @jeffreedfilm @fredmenou @pablo_durana @dirtmyth @3bearsmedia @danny_schmidt just to name a few. We are on to the second season and I am reminded making stuff like this is hard work. Spent all of June on the road for S02 and found myself wondering whether what I was doing was as good as S01 or at times any good at all. Creative inspiration can be fickle. And while I do feel like we captured some lightning in a bottle while making Season 1, pretty sure there are more sparks are out there waiting for us. #newsanddocemmys #humanfootprintPBS @daysedge

Southern Sojourn / May 2024 // In celebration of Michelle’s @meesha777 graduation from her Masters in Jurisprudence program @tulaneu we spent a couple weeks traveling about the south and a handful of days trying out the remote worker deal. Very proud of Michelle for pursuing advanced studies while working full time. Far easier to work towards a degree when you think maybe somebody is going to give you a job because of it - harder when you are already employed. She likes to remind people that she still has to complete her last class before its official - either way we got the celebrating part finished up. Ventured beyond New Orleans and stayed in Mobile, AL. Went to the beach in Pensacola, FL and a AA ball game in Biloxi, MS. Was deeply moved by the @legacymuseum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL. My US history classes in school glossed over the atrocities of slavery as it were just a momentary blip in our countries origin story. Resources like the 1619 Project gave me an idea what historical facts the museum would cover, but the stories depicted pushed the history beyond a mere intellectual exercise into an emotional one. The air was hot and thick, the food rich and indulgent and the late night wanderings circuitous. Thankful that I had time to spend with Michelle before I start pin-balling around on a busy second half of the year production schedule. Joined for the weekend celebration were friends and family including @jessetufte @shel_sebren @christine.mar15 .

The Last Artifact / 2020 // I was reminded by a DP buddy of mine recently that having the time to pull screen grabs from old projects is a sign of freelance unemployment or at least underemployment. As is typical with anyone who works as an independent contractor, one either has not enough work or too much. Currently it is the former and thankfully the rest of the year is setting up to be the latter. I try to be mindful of the benefits of forced sabbaticals and know that within a blink of an eye I will be on the road more than I will be at home. Doing my best to do what humans do worst - live in the present. And while I know posting old projects to IG might be a version of living in the creative past, self promotion is timeless. Frame grabs from a great project with a great crew. It was one of those jobs that reminds one why you hang on through the purge of lean times and endure the relentlessness of the production binges. @pbs #metrology @reddigitalcinema @parkerbrownsound #edwatkins @stef_watkins @simonlewis.info @scottsterling @jaimejacobsen