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Rick Smolan (born November 5, 1949) is a former ''Time'', ''Life'', and ''National Geographic''
photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...
best known as the co-creator of the ''Day in the Life'' book series. He is currently CEO of Against All Odds Productions, a cross-media organization.


Background

Smolan is a 1972 graduate of Dickinson College and co-created the best-selling ''Day in The Life Series'' photography series with '' David Elliot Cohen'' who are credited for creating the mass market for large-format illustrated books. Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, co-founders of Against All Odds Productions, have produced a number of global crowd sourcing projects. Fortune Magazine selected Against All Odds Productions as One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America. More than five million of his books have been sold around the world, many have appeared on ''The New York Times'' best-seller lists and have been featured on the covers of ''Fortune,'' ''Time,'' and ''Newsweek.'' Smolan is also a member of the
CuriosityStream Curiosity Stream also know as (Curiosity Channel) is an American media company and subscription video streaming service that offers documentary programming including films, series, and TV shows. It was launched in 2015 by the founder of the Dis ...
Advisory Board.


Data collection projects

In 2012 Smolan and co-author Erwitt published ''The Human Face of Big Data'', a book in which Smolan and Erwitt used various photographs, graphics, and information to make big data easier to comprehend and absorb on a more personal, relatable level. '' uman Face of Big Data' focusing on humanity's new ability to collect, analyze, triangulate and visualize vast amounts of data in real time. In 2000 Smolan organized ''The Planet Project: Your Voice, Your World'', one of the largest real-time internet polls in internet history, with the aim to get answers from over 1.5 million people in more than 240 countries on how they felt about their lives at the dawn of the new millennium.


Notable works

''From Alice to Ocean'' is a collection of photographs Smolan took of
Robyn Davidson Robyn Davidson (born 6 September 1950) is an Australian writer best known for her 1980 book ''Tracks'', about her 2,700 km (1,700 miles) trek across the deserts of Western Australia using camels. Her career of travelling and writing about ...
's 1,700-mile trek across the deserts of central and
Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
that
National Geographic Magazine ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
sponsored. Davidson's writings along with Smolan's photographs became a National Geographic cover story. An autobiographical account of her trek was later published in 1980 as a book entitled ''Tracks'', which included some of Smolan's photographs. In 1996, Smolan and Erwitt published the ''Day in the Life'' book ''24 Hours in Cyberspace: Painting on the Walls of the Digital Cave'', a collection of photographs from 150 photojournalists, with the intention to, over a 24-hour period, chronicle how the internet was beginning to have a profound effect on the daily lives of people around the world. 24 Hours in Cyberspace (February 8, 1996) was "the largest one-day online event" up to that date, headed by Smolan with Jennifer Erwitt, Tom Melcher,
Samir Arora Samir Arora (born November 5, 1965) is an Indian-American businessman and CEO of Kyro since September 2021, the former CEO of Sage Digital from 2016 to 2021, and the former CEO of Mode Media (formerly Glam Media) from 2003 to April 2016. He was ...
and
Clement Mok Clement Mok (born 1958) is a graphic designer and author. Mok founded several design-related businesses — Studio Archetype (acquired by Sapient), CMCD and NetObjects, Inc. In 1997, Mok helped to launch the advertising campaign called "Th ...
. In 2003 Smolan and Cohen published '' America 24/7''.''America At Home'', ''UK at Home'', and ''America 24/7'' encapsulates various perspectives on life by inviting the public to submit images, and enabled readers to place their own photographs within or on the book. In November 2007 Smolan and Erwitt published ''Blue Planet Run : The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World'', a series of photos illustrating attempts around the world to bring fresh drinking water to various communities suffering from lack of clean and consistent water supply. In 2009, Smolan published ''Obama Time Capsule'', which incorporated photos of
Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
's first campaign for presidential office and his first 100 days in office. It includes commentary from various notable people including
Arianna Huffington Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (née Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou, el, Αριάδνη-Άννα Στασινοπούλου ; born July 15, 1950) is a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of '' Th ...
and General Colin Powell. 'The Obama Time Capsule was also published in a form where each book was printed separately and readers could include their own contributions and photos to personalize the individual book they would receive. Smolan teamed up with Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald to "create the first user-generated feature-length documentary film shot on a single day" for
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
underwritten project ''Life in a Day''. This historic global film experiment enlists the global community to capture a moment of their lives on Saturday, July 24, 2010. Against All Odds Productions, Smolan's company, distributed "cameras to individuals in remote regions of the world in an effort to ensure that the film is as inclusive and representative as possible". An Australian film based on Davidson's book, called '' Tracks'', was released in August 2013, starring
Mia Wasikowska Mia Wasikowska ( ; born 25 October 1989) is an Australian actress. She made her screen debut on the Australian television drama '' All Saints'' in 2004, followed by her feature film debut in ''Suburban Mayhem'' (2006). She first became known to ...
as Davidson and
Adam Driver Adam Douglas Driver (born November 19, 1983) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award; making him one of few performers nominated ...
as Smolan. In 2015 Smolan published ''Inside Tracks:Alone Across the Outback'' via a successful Kickstarter campaign. The project was released in conjunction with the North American film premiere in late 2014 of the film, and combines Smolan's photographs, excerpts from Davidson's book, images from the film, and an interactive app. Most recently Smolan and Erwitt created ''The Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice''. The book captures many aspects of the struggles of Americans who have experienced hatred, oppression or bigotry because of their gender, skin color, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or beliefs over the past 100 years. The book features more than 180 photographs, 63 embedded videos, over a dozen essays plus examples of music and lyrics that accompanied or inspired the struggle. ''The Good Fight'' became one of Amazon's top 100 books within a week after it was released, and ''
People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
'' magazine chose it as one of the "10 Best Books of the Year". The TED organization sent a copy to all 1,500 members as the official TED Book Club selection. The book won numerous awards including The Independent Book Publishers' “Freedom Fighter” Award, and Ben Franklin Association awards for “History" and “Politics and Current Events".


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smolan, Rick American photographers Dickinson College alumni Living people 1949 births 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers 20th-century American male writers