ANGELA SMITH

Growing up on the coast of Maine, my love affair with the ocean started at a young age. We grew up exploring the islands, investigating tide pools and learning to sail. I come from a family of artists so photography has always been part of my life.

Early in my career I worked on sail and power yachts in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Western Asia and South America. I learned to dive and got my first underwater camera during this time. After a number of years traveling I decided to live in Antigua, W.I. and began working at a local film and multimedia production company. We did film and photo projects all over the Caribbean and many of the productions involved underwater work. Around that time a Los Angeles based film company we were working with on a shoot in St. Barts offered me a job and I ended up coming back to the U.S. to work as a producer and director for film, commercial and video production. I went on to run production companies in New York City and then became a consultant working with online media companies like NBC, National Geographic, Discovery and PBS. Along the way I became involved in conservation and recently have been working to raise awareness for dwindling shark populations, coral reef decline and endangered sea turtles.

Currently I work with Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI) and Florida DEP’s program called “Our Florida Reefs”, Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation – Sharklab, Shark Savers|WildAid and American Shark Conservancy to name a few. In 2013 I also founded an extreme travel company called Shark Team One which focuses on conservation, science and photography expeditions worldwide

It’s wonderful being a photographer and working in conservation because there is always a need for visuals. My underwater images are used for fundraising, bringing awareness to causes and educating people about endangered species. Images can generate awe, document change and call attention to ocean issues.

My future photographic goals are to spend more time exposing climate change, ocean acidification, shark finning, ocean plastic pollution and overfishing. Photography is a powerful tool, it can move people to take action and truly make a difference.