After a career as a New York Fashion Editor and working along side the greats of fashion photography, Aline Smithson discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. Now represented by galleries across the country and published throughout the world, Aline continues to create her award-winning photography with humor, compassion, and a 50-year-old camera. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Artworks, Lenswork Extended, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines. She has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, The Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona, and Wallspace Gallery in Seattle. Aline has been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine, writes and edits the blog, Lenscratch, is a contributing writer for Diffusion ,Too Much Chocolate, Lucida, and F Stop Magazines, writes book reviews for photoeye, and has been curating exhibitions for a number of galleries and on-line magazines. She was a 2009 and 2010 juror for Critical Mass, and a reviewer at Review LA in 2010 and 2011. Though she was nominated for The Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and for The Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 2009 by Center, she considers her children her greatest achievement.

artist STATEMENT

I take photographs to allow myself and the viewer to linger a little longer within an image. I try to look for or create moments that are at once familiar, yet unexpected. The odd juxtapositions that we find in life are worth exploring, whether it is with humor, compassion, or by simply taking the time to see them.

I have been greatly influenced by the Japanese concept of celebrating a singular object. I tend to isolate subject matter and look for complexity in simple images, providing an opportunity for telling a story in which all is not what it appears to be. The poignancy of childhood, aging, relationships, family, and moments of introspection or contemplation continue to draw my interest. I want to create pictures that evoke a universal memory.

I work with four cameras: a twin lens Rolleiflex, a Hasselblad, the Diana plastic camera, and the Holga plastic camera. The first two provide clarity and formality; the latter two provide spontaneity and simplicity. All are characteristics I would apply to myself.