A Working Studio · Est. 2009
Paul Smith
Commercial & Editorial Photography
About the Studio
A working studio, not a freelancer.
Paul Smith is a commercial and editorial photographer whose work has appeared on more than forty magazine covers and in campaigns for a roster of Fortune 500 brands. Since founding the studio in Brooklyn in 2009, he has built a practice that pairs the eye of a photojournalist with the reliability of a production lead — handling art direction, casting, location, lighting, and retouch in-house so that clients walk away with a finished image library, not a folder of RAW files.
The studio is a team of eight, including two first assistants, a dedicated producer, and a full-time retoucher, working out of a 1,400-square-foot daylight studio on Kent Avenue rebuilt in 2021 with Profoto Pro-11 packs, a Phase One IQ4, and a permanent cyc wall. Every project runs through a single point of contact and ships under Paul's name — no agency markup, no anonymous sub-contracting.
Most of the studio's work arrives through repeat and referral clients; the relationship is the portfolio. The same handful of art directors have been commissioning Paul since the early 2010s, and the brief on every new project reads less like a cold pitch and more like the next chapter of an ongoing conversation.
Selected Milestones
2009 — 2024
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01
2009
Studio founded in Brooklyn, NY
Paul opens the studio with a single assistant and a borrowed Mamiya RZ67. The first year produces twelve editorial features and the studio's first agency-of-record relationship.
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02
2014
Named one of PDN's '30 Photographers to Watch'
Photo District New York includes Paul in its annual list of emerging photographers, citing his editorial portraiture and on-location lighting discipline.
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03
2015–2024
Six-time Communication Arts Photography Annual winner
Selected for the annual in 2015, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2024 — one of the most consistent editorial records in the program's recent history.
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04
2018–2023
Yale MFA Photo guest critic · ICP & SVA lecturer
Regular guest critic at Yale's MFA Photography program and a featured lecturer at the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts. During this period the studio also photographed three Pulitzer-finalist feature subjects.
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05
2021
Studio rebuilt at 240 Kent Avenue
The Brooklyn studio is rebuilt around a permanent cyc wall, Profoto Pro-11 packs, and a Phase One IQ4 — a permanent production home for an eight-person crew.
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06
2022
APA 'Advertising Photographer of the Year' — Honorable Mention
Recognized by the American Photographic Artists for a body of commercial work produced between 2020 and 2021.
Selected Covers
On the cover: 2011 — 2024
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Vogue 2016 -
GQ 2019 -
Vanity Fair 2021 -
Wired 2022 -
Fast Company 2023 -
The New Yorker 2024
A working archive of 180,000+ frames, fully tagged and rights-managed, sits behind every cover above.
— Paul Smith
The photograph is the smallest part of the job. The job is the brief, the casting, the call sheet, the lighting test, the retouch round, the invoicing, the second deliverable. If the client has to think about any of that, I haven't done my job. The archive is built so that a frame shot in 2014 is still findable, still licensable, still mine to defend — that's the part no one photographs but everything else depends on.
P. S.
By the Numbers
- 40+ Magazine covers since 2011 Vogue · GQ · Vanity Fair · Wired · Fast Company · The New Yorker
- 380+ Commissioned projects Avg. 4.9 / 5 client rating across the last seven years
- 180k Frames in the working archive Fully tagged and rights-managed
- 80% Repeat & referral work Trusted roster: Nike · Patagonia · The New Yorker · Ace Hotel Group
In 2024 alone: 142 commercial campaigns · 38 editorial features shipped.
Working with Paul
Bring us a brief.
Editorial clients receive 48-hour preview selects; commercial clients receive a finished retouched library within ten business days. One point of contact from kickoff to delivery.
Start a Project