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Rick Smolan

Rick Smolan (born 1949) is an photographer, , and best known for co-creating the "" series of large-format photographic books that documented specific days in various countries and themes, achieving sales of over five million copies. A former contributor to Time, Life, and magazines, Smolan pioneered collaborative through his company Against All Odds Productions, which named one of the "25 Coolest Companies in America." His notable works include the National Geographic cover story on Robyn Davidson's Australian outback trek, later adapted into the film Tracks, and projects like The Human Face of , a WEBBY-winning app and PBS documentary exploring data's societal impact, as well as America 24/7 and The Good Fight: America’s Ongoing Struggle for Justice. Smolan, a 1972 graduate of , has emphasized photography's role in fostering empathy and understanding through immersive visual narratives rather than isolated images.

Personal Background

Early Life and Education

Rick Smolan was born in 1949 and grew up in . During his childhood and high school years there, he characterized himself as a shy with a D-minus average. Photography emerged as a pivotal interest in high school, enabling him to engage with diverse peer groups—including athletes, cheerleaders, and intellectuals—by capturing flattering images that built social bridges for the self-described introvert. In 1967, Smolan participated in the School Year Abroad program in (ES'67), attending classes and supplementing his studies by apprenticing in a Barcelona photographer's shop under Señor Vilalta, where he mastered darkroom printing techniques. This experience yielded his inaugural , documenting the program's participants and activities. Smolan enrolled at Dickinson College following his abroad year, graduating in 1972. No specific major or degree details are publicly documented from this period, though his early photographic pursuits foreshadowed a professional trajectory in photojournalism.

Professional Career

Initial Photography Assignments

Smolan entered professional photography shortly after graduating from Dickinson College in 1972, lacking formal training but leveraging his college yearbook experience and personal portfolio. At age 23, he secured his first assignment for a special issue of Life magazine titled "One Day in the Life of America," in which two of his photographs were published. Motivated by a $25 wager with a friend, Smolan presented his work at the Time-Life building in New York City, leading to a contract position with Time magazine around age 24 in 1973. His early assignments for , and later focused on photojournalistic stories emphasizing human narratives in challenging environments. Notable among these was coverage of abandoned children of GIs in , during which Smolan documented the plight of war orphans and facilitated the adoption of an 11-year-old girl named . In 1977, while on a Time assignment in , Smolan encountered adventurer preparing for her solo trek across the with camels; subsequently assigned him to photograph the 1,700-mile journey, resulting in a cover story in the May 1978 issue and images featured in Davidson's book Tracks. These assignments established Smolan's reputation for immersive, long-form storytelling, often involving extended fieldwork in remote or conflict-affected areas.

Development of Large-Scale Projects

Smolan transitioned from freelance photojournalism assignments for publications such as Time, Life, and to orchestrating collaborative, large-scale photography endeavors, seeking greater editorial autonomy after experiencing constraints imposed by magazine editorial priorities. In 1980, he conceived the prototype for this approach with A Day in the Life of Australia, coordinating 100 photographers to document 24 consecutive hours across the continent on March 6, 1981, resulting in thousands of images edited into a comprehensive large-format book. Facing rejection from 35 publishers, Smolan self-financed the initial production with a small team of six collaborators, incurring approximately $100,000 in expenses before securing corporate sponsorships from entities including , , and Apple—facilitated through connections with Australian Prime Minister —in exchange for logo acknowledgments while preserving . Released in October 1981, the book sold 250,000 copies in alone, becoming the nation's top-selling title by and validating a replicable template: rapid, nationwide single-day shoots by elite photographer teams, sponsor-funded logistics, and high-production-value outputs. This success prompted expansion of the model to additional national volumes, such as those for , , , and the , with acquiring the series in 1987 after cumulative sales exceeded expectations. Smolan established Against All Odds Productions to systematize these operations, handling coordination of dozens to hundreds of contributors, sponsorship negotiations (e.g., with and pharmaceutical firms yielding up to $5 million per project), and innovations like integrating CD-ROMs and later applications for interactive elements, thereby scaling from print-centric books to multimedia formats while maintaining intense, deadline-driven timelines. The approach evolved to thematic projects beyond geography, such as Passage to Vietnam in 1994, emphasizing overlooked global issues through vast image volumes processed under tight constraints.

Major Projects and Publications

Day in the Life Series

The series, co-created by photographer Rick Smolan and editor David Cohen, comprises oversized photography books that capture a 24-hour period in a specific country, region, or theme using contributions from hundreds of professional photojournalists. Each volume assembles thousands of images into a visual chronicle, emphasizing diversity, simultaneity, and human activity, with production supported by corporate sponsors such as , , and Apple to cover logistical costs after initial publisher rejections. The series originated with A Day in the Life of Australia, documented on March 6, 1981, by 100 photographers across the continent; self-published following 35 rejections, it sold millions of copies and established the format's viability for large-scale collaborative projects. This success prompted expansions, including A Day in the Life of America (published 1986), which featured images from 200 photojournalists taken on May 2, 1986, and marked the first photography book to reach the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Other notable early volumes encompass A Day in the Life of Japan (1985), A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union (1987, covering May 15, 1987), and A Day in the Life of Canada (1988). The methodology relied on meticulous coordination: photographers received assignments via maps and briefs, submitted film for centralized editing, and final selections formed thematic sequences rather than strict chronology, often involving Smolan's on-site direction and post-production adjustments for visual flow. The series expanded to 13 volumes by the 1990s, incorporating regional focuses like A Day in the Life of California (1990) and thematic works such as 24 Hours in Cyberspace (1996), which documented online activity on January 20, 1996, with over 100 photographers and digital contributors. These books collectively sold millions of copies, elevating collaborative photojournalism and influencing multimedia storytelling by demonstrating scalable, sponsor-funded models for high-production-value publications.

National and Thematic Series

Smolan produced a series of national projects centered on country-specific portraits, often expanding the format of his earlier works to encompass broader timeframes or participatory elements, alongside thematic initiatives exploring specific cultural, historical, or human narratives. These efforts typically coordinated dozens to thousands of photographers, resulting in lavishly produced books that blended with innovation. America 24/7 (2003), a national project, captured American daily life over the week of May 12–18, 2003, through submissions from nearly 25,000 photographers, including 1,000 professionals and citizen contributors enabled by digital cameras and an online portal. Co-created with David Elliot Cohen and published by DK, the book featured over 250,000 images winnowed to showcase diverse communities, resilience, and technological integration in everyday routines, selling over 150,000 copies in initial printings. Thematic projects delved into targeted subjects, such as Passage to Vietnam (1994), which deployed 70 photographers from 23 nations across for three weeks to document post-war recovery and reunified society. Published by Against All Odds Productions and Melcher Media, the book—accompanied by a —highlighted economic reforms under , rural traditions, and urban modernization, portraying a nation shifting from without overt ideological advocacy. From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback (1992) offered a thematic lens on individual exploration, pairing excerpts from Robyn Davidson's memoir Tracks with Smolan's photographs from her 1,700-mile camel trek across in 1977. Sponsored by and published by , the volume—innovative for including a floppy disk of supplemental material—emphasized solitude, environmental harshness, and cultural encounters with , drawing from Smolan's intermittent documentation during the journey. Other thematic works included The Power to Heal: Medicine's Great Journey (1990), tracing the evolution of Western medicine through historical images and contemporary cases, underscoring advancements in treatment while critiquing systemic barriers to access. These series demonstrated Smolan's pivot toward hybrid narratives blending with issue-driven storytelling, often leveraging for distribution.

Digital and Data Visualization Works

Rick Smolan's engagement with digital media began in the mid-1990s, marking a transition from traditional photojournalism to projects incorporating emerging internet and computational technologies. In 1996, he produced 24 Hours in Cyberspace, the largest one-day online photographic event at the time, involving 150 photojournalists documenting the internet's human impact across global sites during a single 24-hour period on February 8. The resulting book, published that year by Against All Odds Productions, included a CD-ROM with interactive elements, highlighting cyberspace's counterculture and everyday users through photographs and narratives. Building on this, Smolan launched One Digital Day in 1998, a follow-up project that captured the pervasive role of technologies in daily life via contributions from hundreds of photographers worldwide. The work emphasized the integration of digital tools into human activities, predating widespread and -driven visualization but foreshadowing Smolan's later focus on technology's societal footprint. Smolan's most prominent visualization effort came with The Human Face of Big Data in 2012, a project exploring collection, analysis, and visualization's effects on humanity. The initiative featured a launched on September 25, 2012, for and , which anonymously gathered over 1.5 million user responses to 60 questions on personal habits, beliefs, and locations via GPS and sensors, enabling "data doppelganger" comparisons. A companion coffee-table book, released November 20, 2012, combined 100 photographers' images with infographics—such as Nigel Holmes's depictions of flows and data's economic value—and essays on applications in healthcare, , and . An interactive app extended the visualization, earning a Webby Award, while a documentary was planned for 2013. Sponsored primarily by , the project distributed 10,000 copies to policymakers, underscoring data's transformative potential through visual storytelling.

Business Ventures and Innovations

Against All Odds Productions

Against All Odds Productions is a transmedia company co-founded by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt to manage large-scale publishing and multimedia projects originating from Smolan's photography initiatives. Smolan serves as CEO, overseeing operations from . The firm coordinates collaborations with hundreds of international journalists and photographers for crowd-sourced, global-scale endeavors that integrate visual with advanced . In 1995, Fortune magazine designated Against All Odds Productions as one of the "25 Coolest Companies in America" for its innovative approach to multimedia production. The company has developed digital extensions for print works, including iPad applications enabling interactive exploration of book content via icons and multimedia layers. These efforts extend Smolan's earlier analog projects into hybrid formats, emphasizing data visualization and cross-platform distribution to reach broader audiences. Against All Odds Productions focuses on executing projects that require logistical coordination across remote locations, including distributing equipment to contributors worldwide to capture diverse perspectives. By prioritizing scalable, technology-enhanced narratives, the company has supported Smolan's transition from traditional to contemporary visual communications, though specific financial metrics or client lists remain undisclosed in public records.

Production Techniques and Challenges

Smolan's production techniques at Against All Odds Productions emphasize crowd-sourced collaboration, leveraging networks of hundreds of international photographers and journalists to capture expansive narratives. For projects like the "Day in the Life" series, he coordinates simultaneous shoots across vast geographies, as in the 1981 edition where 100 photographers documented 24 hours nationwide on March 6. This method relies on pre-assigned locations and themes to ensure comprehensive coverage without overlap, followed by centralized editing to curate thousands of images into cohesive books. Integration of emerging technologies distinguishes his approach, pioneering interactive elements such as companions for books like "From Alice to Ocean" in the , which allowed nonlinear through . Later works, including "Inside Tracks," incorporate smartphone augmentation where users scan printed photos to access videos and additional content, blending static imagery with dynamic digital layers. Logistics involve distributing equipment to remote participants and partnering with sponsors for , as seen in "The Human Face of Big Data," where Against All Odds shipped 10,000 copies via to global influencers in 2012. Challenges in these large-scale endeavors include formidable logistical hurdles, such as synchronizing teams across time zones and borders, exemplified by the 1991 "Passage to Vietnam" project that deployed 70 photographers from 23 nations amid post-war access restrictions. Financial precariousness has been recurrent, with Smolan describing operations as "skating on thin ice" during the "Day in the Life of the " due to funding shortfalls and bureaucratic delays. The "Human Face of " represented his most demanding effort, grappling with abstract data visualization and securing permissions for sensitive tech sites, underscoring the difficulties of translating intangible phenomena into visual narratives. Editing vast submissions—often exceeding 100,000 images—further strains resources, requiring rigorous selection to maintain narrative coherence while managing production costs for high-end prints and .

Reception, Impact, and Legacy

Achievements and Commercial Success

Smolan's "Day in the Life" series achieved unprecedented commercial success for large-format books, with over five million copies sold worldwide across the titles, far exceeding the typical sales threshold of tens of thousands in the genre. The inaugural volume, of , self-published in 1981, sold 200,000 copies in a market where 5,000 units qualified as a . Follow-up projects like of (1986) became instant hits, generating substantial revenue through book sales, exhibitions, and related media such as documentaries and calendars. Several of Smolan's publications, including titles from the "" series and later works like (2012), reached New York Times bestseller status and were selected for prominent features on covers of Time, , , and . alone sold more than 55,000 copies and was chosen by the book club as an official selection. As CEO of Against All Odds Productions, Smolan's company earned recognition from Fortune magazine as one of "25 Coolest Companies in America" for its innovative multimedia projects blending photography, data visualization, and storytelling. These ventures have collectively formed a multimillion-dollar enterprise, leveraging sponsorships, crowdsourcing, and global distribution to amplify commercial viability beyond traditional publishing models.

Criticisms and Limitations

Smolan's "24 Hours in Cyberspace" project, launched in 1996, sparked controversy with 's Media Lab, which accused him of appropriating an idea originally conceived for the lab's 10th anniversary celebration. Michael Hawley, an associate professor at the lab, stated that Smolan had abandoned their collaborative "Day in the Life of Cyberspace" effort in 1995, nearly derailing it, only to proceed with a similar photography-centric initiative without crediting . Nicholas , the lab's director, described Smolan's claim of sole authorship as "dishonest," emphasizing that the concept originated at the institution. Smolan countered that the projects differed fundamentally—his focused on visual documentation rather than the lab's broader scope—and that he withdrew due to timeline pressures, insisting, "We had two very different events in mind." Critics have raised ethical concerns over image manipulation in Smolan's work, particularly in "A Day in the Life of America" (1986), where he repositioned a in the cover photograph to enhance composition, blurring lines between documentary integrity and artistic enhancement. Smolan justified such adjustments by likening the cover to that promotes the book's contents, but this practice has fueled debates in about staging elements in purportedly candid scenes. Similar alterations, including electronic color and composition changes in other images, have been cited as examples of how large-scale projects can prioritize aesthetic appeal over unaltered reality. The commercial nature of Smolan's endeavors, reliant on corporate sponsorships exceeding millions of dollars per project, has drawn scrutiny for potential influences on selection and framing, though direct evidence of remains anecdotal. Limitations inherent to the "day-in-the-life" include its approach, which captures breadth but often sacrifices depth, potentially glossing over systemic issues in favor of visually compelling moments amid logistical constraints like coordinating hundreds of photographers across vast areas.

Recent Activities and Influence

In recent years, Smolan has focused on engagements that revisit pivotal moments from his career, particularly his 1977 National Geographic assignment documenting Robyn Davidson's solo camel trek across the Australian , which inspired the and film Tracks. On October 25, 2024, he delivered a live presentation titled "Tracks: Alone Across the " at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, sharing the logistical challenges and personal insights from covering the 1,700-mile journey with Davidson, her dog Diggity, and four camels. Earlier, on March 5, 2024, at the Xposure Photo Festival in , , Smolan recounted the same assignment, emphasizing its transformative role in his approach to long-form amid extreme conditions. Smolan's ongoing role as CEO of Against All Odds Productions has sustained his involvement in visual storytelling workshops and discussions on publishing. On June 19, 2025, he co-hosted a on photo book strategies with consultant Mary Virginia Swanson, addressing creation, funding, and distribution for photographers. In fall 2025, he led a session on "Telling Your Personal Story," drawing from his experience in crowd-sourced multimedia projects to guide participants on narrative development. These activities reflect a shift toward , with no major new large-scale productions announced since The Human Face of Big Data in 2012. Smolan's influence persists in inspiring contemporary photographic initiatives and transmedia production, as evidenced by his return engagements at conferences like the Dent Conference following a 2023 appearance focused on visual documentation of societal progress. His methodologies for orchestrating global collaborations continue to shape crowd-sourced visual projects, though recent efforts emphasize reflection on past innovations in data visualization and immersive storytelling rather than novel undertakings.

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