Rick Smolan
| Rick Smolan | |
|---|---|
 Rick Smolan in the Sausalito headquarters of his production company, "Against All Odds Productions" |
Rick Smolan is an American photographer. He is CEO of Against All Odds Productions.[1]
[edit] Background
Smolan is a 1972 graduate of Dickinson College. He has worked for TIME, LIFE and National Geographic. Smolan created the best-selling 'Day in the Life' photography series and is CEO of Against All Odds Productions, which specializes in the design and execution of large-scale global photographic projects that combine compelling story-telling with state-of-the-art technology. Fortune Magazine selected Against All Odds as "One of the 25 Coolest Companies in America". Eight of the company's projects have been featured on the covers of Fortune magazine, Time magazine, Newsweek and US News & World Report.
[edit] Photography projects
[edit] The Obama Time Capsule
Spanning a three-year period from the tumultuous campaign, through Obama's first 100 days, The Obama Time Capsule captures the challenges and opportunities facing America's 44th President as he takes his place on the world stage again.
[edit] America at Home and UK at Home
America at Home and UK at Home were published in April 2008. For these books, 150 of the world's top photojournalists and tens of thousands of amateur photographers fanned out around the United States and the United Kingdom to shoot digital photos of the most important place in their lives: home. Both books offer readers the ability to receive customized dust jackets for their books. AMERICA AT HOME and UK AT HOME were sponsored by IKEA.
[edit] Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Clean Drinking Water to the World
"Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Clean Drinking Water to the World" was released in November 2007. The book provides readers with an extraordinary look at the water problems facing humanity and some of the hopeful solutions being pursued by large and small companies, by entrepreneurs and activists, and by nongovernmental organizations and foundations. One hundred percent of the royalties from this book are being used to provide clean drinking water to people around the world who desperately need it.
[edit] America 24/7
"America 24/7" was the largest photographic event in U.S. history. Smolan and his long-time friend and business partner David Elliot Cohen sent 1,000 top photojournalists (including 36 Pulitzer Prize winners) across the United States for a week to create an extraordinary snapshot of American life. 25,000 stringers, students and amateurs also submitted images to the project website.
[edit] 24 Hours in Cyberspace: Painting on the Walls of the Digital Cave
Held online on February 8, 1996 it was "the largest one-day online event" up to that date.[2] "The project brought together the world's top photographers, editors, programmers, and interactive designers to create a digital time capsule of online life. The original website is still available online, frozen in time, at "24 Hours in Cyberspace" "[2] A photographic exhibition was unveiled at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History on 23 January 1997, featuring 70 photos from the project.[3]
[edit] Passage to Vietnam: Through the Eyes of 70 Photographers
Seventy award-winning photojournalists with unprecedented access to every corner of Vietnam created an intimate portrait of this intriguing country, 20 years after the war's end. The project was created in partnership with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Interval Research.
[edit] One Digital Day: How the Microchip Is Changing Our World
"One Digital Day: How the Microchip is Changing Our World" was published in June 1998 in conjunction with the celebration of Intel's 30th anniversary. The book features more than 200 photographs, taken on that single day, revealing a world that only science-fiction writers once dared envision.
[edit] The Planet Project: Your Voice, Your World
"The Planet Project: Your Voice Your World", was the largest real time online poll in Internet history. 3,000 pollsters were sent to the most remote places on earth armed with Palm Pilots containing 220 questions in 8 languages aimed at determining what it means to be a human being at the dawn of the millennium. The 8-language web site was visited by 1.6 million people from 241 countries who answered more than 28 million questions. 'The Planet Project' generated 781 million media impressions worldwide.
[edit] From Alice to Ocean
In 1977 National Geographic assigned Smolan to photograph a story about an Australian woman, Robyn Davidson, who traveled across Australia with camels. Davidson later wrote a book about it, Tracks (1980). Smolan's photography appeared both in the magazine andTracks. In the early 1990s, Smolan published his pictures of the trip, in From Alice to Ocean; which has the distinction of being the first interactive story-and-photo CD made for public release.
