Monika Smith

Monika Smith was born in Germany’s Black Forest region in February 1950. Her interest in photography began in the mid-sixties and, after an abbreviated apprenticeship as a hand bookbinder, she worked in various photo labs and taught herself photography which was to lead on to a life-long interest and career.

Monika spent the 1970’s in London working for Film, TV & Theatrical Costumiers whilst making a photographic record of life as a personal project. Since then Monika has expanded her freelance photographic career, with exhibitions throughout England and Europe. During this period she also took part in writing and film making courses in Brighton.

Today, Monika’s inspiration comes from a mixture of themes and ideas, from a wide range of sources. Her extensive portfolio often leads to commissions, which become both commercial and historical pieces. What is exciting about photographs such as ‘Carousel’ is the raw illustrational feeling that comes from the image. Commissioned by Arun District Council, Carousel depicts four figures silhouetted against a fiery orange backdrop, which skillfully invites the viewer into a narrative that rolls across the image in textured duotones. The inspiration for this photograph was the movement of disabled dancers taken during a dance workshop, and no image manipulation or Photoshop work has been used to create the painterly quality depicting the group. This photograph comes straight from the lens. The mood is strong in this picture, a feeling of anonymous figures striding across a two-dimensional landscape, and although figurative, is evocative of expressionist painters such as Rothko.

Monika Smith has around ten thousand images registered with the photographic giant Corbis whose stock photography is used across many disciplines supplying solutions to advertising agencies and newspapers alike. The stark image of ‘Pier 1’ demonstrates just why companies like Corbis clamor to carry Monika’s photographs. With the desolate West Pier standing ghost-like against a seamless Brighton horizon, the photograph serenely draws the viewer into the image of history and faded majesty. The spectator stands with the ghostly looming pier to one side, and the expansive ocean meeting the sky ahead; diminishing history to one side, with opportunities and possibilities dead ahead. Beautiful deep contrasts shadow the windowless pier within another almost duotone photograph, smeared with reflections and broken railings, depicting a grander life, gone but not forgotten.

Taken in 2000, photographs such as Pier 1 are all the more precious today, as in a blaze of publicity the Brighton West Pier no longer stands at all. Closed since 1975, the pier has suffered natural decay at the hands of the elements, but had miraculously survived unchanged since 1916. That is until 2002/2003 when fires stripped the pier of all of its wood and glass, leaving just a skeleton of ironwork. The grandeur and magic of seaside Britain lost forever, but captured by Monika’s lens. Monika plays an active role in local community and it’s history, having received an award of ‘Life History Work’ from the University of Sussex for the receipt of over 50 volumes of illustrated diaries. Recording her own life and capturing images from her environment is unquestionably of local and national interest. Monika has had a book published in 2004 depicting Chichester harbour over the last 100 years, reinforcing the value of her journalistic photography.

One such historically inspired image entitled ‘Wish you were here’ shows two women posing on the railings by a British beach, dressed in 1950’s costumes. Capturing the joy of the quintessential British beach holiday, the photograph portrays a perfect holiday memory, once again suggesting feelings of faded grandeur, holiday promises and a story that is implied to the onlooker and left for them to complete.

The diversity and range of subject matter that is the focus of Monika Smith’s camera is testament to a life of work that records what is of great value to our society. With her honesty and genuine interest in life Monika has captured our changing environment and the splendour of that which was before. Where would we be without the artist documenting the state of play at any one time in history? If you get the chance to see Monika Smith’s photography in one of her numerous exhibitions I would urge you try and see them.