Mickey Smith

Mickey Smith is a surf filmmaker and photographer based around the UK.

Key Facts:

• Smith created a reputation for himself capturing moody and dramatic camera work in a remote areas and heavy sea swell as his cinematic approach.
• He Helped define some of the most iconic big wave locations within Ireland with some of the best surfers and oceanic explorers.
• In 2010 Smith released his short film ‘Dark side of the lens’ sponsored by rockstar, which went on to be given many awards.
• Mickey’s younger years revolved around travelling the blues circuit bands between Cornwall and London until he left school. As well as exploring the west coast of Cornwall
• Mickey’s experimentation with a camera gave him a natural instinct for documentation of ocean adventure around the coast of england.

In this image Smith has used black and white to create a very moody image of a breaking wave. Smith has also created an amazing composition of this image using the rule of thirds, whether he tried to capture it like this, or shot with a wider angle lense to crop the image after it creates an amazing effect with the seaspray in the top left of the image and the breaking wave in the bottom right, creating contrast to the dark top right and bottom left corners of the image, leaving the centre fairly plain, creating a lot of dramatic contrasts in the image.He has also used a fairly quick shutter speed to capture the motion of the wave and freeze it in this image. I imagine that Mickey Smith would have shot this image at night to help with the shadow created by the wave, as well as the vignetting around the edges. I like this images as all of these technical factors come together to create an amazing moody and dramatic image of the ocean. If i were to do this myself I would try to remove some of the graininess from where the sea spray in the top right contrasts with the background, if I was able to.

In conclusion I quite like the aesthetic of Mickey smiths images, but I think that most of the images are quite similar in looks and can make it quite hard to evaluate multiple images, as I think if I tried to talk about ore I would be repeating many points I have already made.