![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Rick-Smolan-1-1-800x532.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
HIPA,<\/a> the world\u2019s most lucrative photo contest awarding $1 million in total prizes annually,\u00a0announced its 2025 winners<\/a>\u00a0on November 11 in Dubai, the popular business and tourist destination in the United Arab Emirates. The Photo Appreciation Award of $100,000 went to photographer, film producer, and best-selling author with five million books in print, Rick Smolan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Rick Smolan<\/a> is a former photojournalist for\u00a0Time, Life,\u00a0and\u00a0National Geographic. When Smolan\u2019s name comes up, it is usually associated with the A Day in the Life Book\u00a0series, which gave a significant boost to the mass-market coffee-table book industry. He has published 80 books, eight of which have landed on The New York Times Best Seller list.<\/p>\n A Half-Frame Camera and Elliott Erwitt for Inspiration<\/strong> <\/p>\n Smolan\u2019s<\/a> pursuit of photography unfolds almost like a movie, from the moment his father forbids him from pursuing a photography career. However, he did present him with a Minolta Repo-S<\/a> (a rare model of Minolta\u2019s half-frame cameras in the 60s with a fast f\/1.8 lens) when he was sixteen.<\/p>\n \u201cI lived in Spain for a year with a family,\u201d begins Smolan<\/a> as he narrates his almost five-decade-long photographic career to PetaPixel. \u201cI didn\u2019t speak a word of Spanish. They didn\u2019t say a word of English. They just drop you into a family, and then you figure it out. And I started taking pictures of my classmates and selling them copies to afford the film. I could talk to girls [with the help of my camera] for the first time, which is very important when you\u2019re 16, because I was very shy. I learned how to develop my film and how to print pictures.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad [also] gave me a book of photographs by Elliott Erwitt<\/a>\u00a0(PetaPixel\u2019s last big interview of Erwitt a year before he passed away) when I was 16. They [the pictures] were funny, quirky, and amusing. They were not mean, but he was obviously amused by humanity. They allowed you to write your own captions. So, as the artist invites you into their world, you get to participate in the meaning of it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I, even as a 16-year-old, was so attracted by that, and that\u2019s what I wanted to do with my pictures. I was just hooked. It was just all I wanted to do\u2013take pictures and develop them.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing his fascination with Erwitt\u2019s imagery, Smolan\u2019s father called Erwitt\u2019s office and persuaded them to offer him a summer internship. But he refused to go, saying he wanted to be a professional photographer first before meeting Erwitt. Little did 16-year-old Smolan know that one day Erwitt would become his father-in-law and contribute to his books.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad was furious,\u201d remembers Smolan. \u201cHe screamed, \u2018You will never be a professional photographer. You\u2019re going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Photography is a hobby. It\u2019s not a profession.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s a profession for Elliot,\u2019 and my dad said, \u2018You know, you have a D minus average. You never finish anything. You have this crazy idea that you\u2019re going to work for some magazine like National Geographic or Time. It doesn\u2019t work that way. I\u2019m not sending you to college to do baby pictures and weddings\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cHe [Smolan\u2019s father] wouldn\u2019t let me go to any college with a photography program. So, in the first week of college, I went to my art professor, Dennis Aiken, [the head of the art department at Dickinson College], and asked if I could create my own photography major. He was kind of amused.\u201d<\/p>\n But the wise teacher, seeing his enthusiasm, let the student have his way. When the professor saw that young Smolan was a self-starter in photography, he introduced him to Jack Corn and his wife, Helen, who ran a stock photo agency in Tennessee.\u201d<\/p>\n Learning the Ropes of Photography through a Stock Photo Agency<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s a stock photo agency?\u201d asked the student. \u201cThe professor said, \u2018Well, all these pictures you\u2019re taking for the yearbook and for your classes, you put a box of 100 pictures together, you send it to them, and they sell your pictures for you.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I sent a box of pictures to Helen and Jack, and to my astonishment, they started sending me checks for hundreds of dollars, which in the 70s was like 1000s of dollars now, and when I graduated, Jack said, \u2018I want to introduce you to the picture editor of Time magazine, John Durniak\u2019 [after 8yrs he joined NYT as picture editor in 1981].\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so, I went up to New York City with my yearbook and my box of prints, and John said, \u2018I love your work. You know. Love to give you some work.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI walked out of the office, and a guy was sitting there who introduced himself as David Burnett<\/a>. And he goes, \u2018Can I see your work?\u2019 So, I showed him my pictures, and he said, \u2018Are you with an agency? And I said, \u2018Like a Stock Photo Agency?\u2019 He said, \u2018No, like a photo agency like Magnum, Sigma, Gamma, or Sipa. I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what that is.\u2019 He goes, \u2018Well, there are photographers that gather into these agencies, and they get you work, and they take 50% of your income.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Give 50% of My Income\u201d to a Photo Agency<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t want to give up 50% of my income.\u2019 And he says, \u2018Well, the reason it\u2019s worth it is that they get you assignments, they edit your pictures, and you go on to the next job, and they do all the back-end stuff. They bill and chase people who don\u2019t pay you. And so, he said, I\u2019m forming a photo agency [Contact Press Images<\/a>] and we have Annie Leibovitz,<\/a> Doug Kirkland<\/a>, Eddie Adams<\/a>, John Franco, Gorgoni, Alon Reininger<\/a>, and Dilip Mehta<\/a>. We\u2019re looking for a young photographer to do the assignments that we don\u2019t want to do. And I said, \u2018What does that mean?\u2019 He goes, \u2018Well, when a magazine offers us a job, we don\u2019t want to say no, because we want to keep the jobs coming. But sometimes, to be honest, some of the jobs are not very interesting. And he said, we\u2019re looking for a young photographer who will. And I said, \u2018Look, I\u2019ll do anything. I\u2019m happy to take the, what do you call it? The outtakes, the rejects.\u2019<\/p>\n He said, \u2018Well, Pan Am has a press junket. It\u2019s the first nonstop flight from New York to Tokyo, lasting 18 hours. You get off in Tokyo. You photograph two guys shaking hands. You get back on the plane and fly back to New York. You want the job? It\u2019s like 30 to 36 hours of flying.\u2019 I said, \u2018When I get to Tokyo, can I get off the plane?\u2019 He goes, \u2018Yeah. I mean, if you want to pay for it yourself. There\u2019s no money to pay for hotels. But if you want to enterprise, sure.\u2019 So, I left on a Monday, told my sister I\u2019d be back on a Friday, and I came back 11 months later.\u201d<\/p>\n Assignments Kept Flowing When He Stayed Over in Japan<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cOnce I got to Japan, I was like a pig in shit,\u201d remembers Smolan. \u201cWhen Time magazine found out that I was in Japan, [Burnett<\/a> spread the word that they had a photographer based in Tokyo], they said, \u2018You want to go live with the Tokyo police force for a month for Time Life books?\u2019 Then Muhammad Ali came to Japan to fight a wrestler, and so I ended up photographing that event. After that, the typhoon hit Guam [U.S. island territory in the Western Pacific], so Time flew me there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Prime Minister of Australia [Malcolm Fraser] came to Japan to spend a week before he went to China, and so Time assigned me to spend a week traveling with the prime minister. I had hair down on my shoulders. I didn\u2019t look like the rest of the press corps. I was this hippie kid. I looked like I was 15. And we toured the Nikon factory as part of his trip. And that afternoon, we were taking a bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto, and the Secret Service came back to the press car and said, \u2018Where\u2019s the American kid?\u2019 And I raised my hand, and all the other journalists said, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re in trouble now, mate.\u2019 The Secret Service said \u2018The Prime Minister wants to speak with you.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Oh, shit. What did I do?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThey escorted me to a little private compartment, and they closed the door, and he said, \u2018So do you prefer the 28 NIKKOR or the 35mm?\u2019 And he was like a closet photographer. He said, \u2018I\u2019d always wanted to be a photographer.\u2019 His parents made him go into politics. And, of course, I immediately told him my story.<\/p>\n And he said, \u2018Have you ever been to Australia?\u2019 I said, \u2018No, I would love to go.\u2019 And he said, \u2018We have a program where the Australian government brings six journalists a year at the government\u2019s expense, and we tour you around the country for two weeks. Would you like to come as my guest?\u2019 So, it was like, Oh, my God, of course. I would love it. And he said, \u2018Would you do my Christmas card for me?\u201d<\/p>\n From Alice to Ocean (1,700 Miles through a Desert with Camels)<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I got to Australia, I told Time the Prime Minister flew me there,\u201d says the photojournalist. \u201cOf course, they\u2019re in heaven because every magazine wants one of their journalists to have it in with a politician. So, Time said, \u2018Well, since you\u2019re in Australia, we want you to shoot a cover story on Aboriginal people for us. Roy Rowan<\/a>, the writer, said, \u2018Here\u2019s a woman that you can talk to who took me into the Aboriginal camps to get permission to meet the tribal elders.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I fly to Alice Springs [in the center of Australia] to meet this woman, a fixer. [I messed up directions to the meeting], and the most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life was washing windows. I was 26 years old and had three cameras around my neck. This girl was gorgeous. And so, I lifted my camera and took some pictures of her. She started screaming at me, like, \u2018Put your f**king cameras down. Who the hell do you think you are?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Burnett<\/a> and other photographers had always said, if people get angry at you when you photograph, never slink away. Always walk over, apologize, and put them at ease. Because it\u2019s good, photographic hygiene. So, I walked over, I said, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry. The light was so beautiful. You were backlit.\u2019 I made up some bullshit.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re American. You f**king parasites come in here every week. You take advantage of these people. You get paid hundreds of dollars a day to photograph their misery, and then you leave them to their misery.\u2019 I couldn\u2019t calm her down. She was so angry at me, not just for taking the pictures but because I was a journalist. She was angry because I was American. She was angry because I took her picture. Nothing, I said, could calm her.\u201d<\/p>\n Smolan finished his assignment on Aboriginal people with help from his fixer, who then invited him to dinner at a house where people in the Aboriginal rights movement were meeting. On landing at the house, Smolan, much to his chagrin, was greeted at the door by the same window-washing woman he had had a dispute with.<\/p>\n There were camels tied to the back of the house, and Smolan inquired with fixer Julie what they were doing there.<\/p>\n \u201cShe [Robyn Davidson] has this crazy idea,\u201d said Julie, \u201cthat she\u2019s gonna walk 2,500 kilometers from here, through the Gibson Desert, out to the Indian Ocean. We told her we want to go with her. She won\u2019t let anybody come. She\u2019s very private, and she\u2019s been working on [it, while] waiting on a**holes at pubs and washing windows.<\/p>\n \u201cRobyn wants to ask you a favor,\u201d was the surprising thing Julie said on the last day before leaving. \u201cShe wrote to National Geographic a year ago and asked if they would give her some money to underwrite her trip. They never even answered. And she thought, maybe you might know somebody there. Could she use your name?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was at a workshop with Bob Gilka,<\/a> who\u2019s the director of photography,\u201d replies Smolan, \u201cbut I don\u2019t know if he remembers me. I was one of like 25 young aspiring photographers. She can use my name, but I don\u2019t really know if it\u2019ll help.\u201d<\/p>\n In the next four months, Smolan shot four Time covers and NYT Magazine assignments, then flew back to the States after 11 months. Three days later, the phone rings, and it is Gilka, asking whether the camel lady is serious about her trip, as they were considering a sponsorship. They didn\u2019t want the headline, \u2018National Geographic subject dies in week two.\u2019 Smolan assures Gilka of her seriousness and immediately lands an assignment to cover her adventure through the Australian outback.<\/p>\n Smolan flew in five times during the course of a year to photograph her, and to this day, it is the most memorable assignment he has done. Smolan told me the whole story for more than an hour at The Sheraton in Dubai while he was there to collect his Photography Appreciation Award from Hamdan International Photography Award<\/a> (HIPA), founded in 2011 under the patronage of the crown prince of Dubai, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum<\/a>. The story was so engrossing, even though I knew parts of it, that I did not dare interrupt Smolan as he kept going.<\/p>\n The Camel Lady, Robyn Davidson<\/a>, with her beloved dog, Diggity [Davidson rescued her from medical research experiments], and four camels, trekked 2,700 kilometers [1,700 miles] across some of Australia\u2019s most remote and inhospitable deserts, from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, in 1977.<\/p>\n Smolan found himself continuously butting heads with Davidson on what she wanted and did not want during the trip, which was affecting his photo assignment. But there were pleasant moments too, and at the end of it all, Smolan, who \u201chad this attraction to crazy women in my 20s,\u201d and Davidson were a couple.<\/p>\n The photo assignment story almost reads like a Hollywood movie. Not almost, but it was an actual Hollywood movie, Tracks<\/a> (2014, 83% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), in which Adam Driver plays Smolan, and Mia Wasikowska plays Davidson.<\/p>\n More than Plain Reporting: Illegitimate Children of American GIs<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cRobyn said to me, when we\u2019re still in Australia (much later on the set of the movie after she had broken up with Smolan), now that my trip is over, are you going back to being a prostitute?\u201d startling Smolan. I said, \u2018Really, you\u2019re still doing this to me?\u2019 She said, \u2018No, I mean this in a good way.\u2019 Smolan queried, \u2018What part of calling me a prostitute do you define as good?\u2019 She said, \u2018Rick, until my trip, somebody would call you, Time would call you, GEO would call you. Here\u2019s a story we want you to shoot, and you\u2019re like a hired gun, right?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018I feel like my trip was the first time you put your career and your ego aside, and my question is, are you going to find something where you can use your skills as a photographer to change the subject? You had a big impact on my life. You were part of this trip. You weren\u2019t just documenting it. My question is, are you going to find something else you can actually change, rather than just be a parasite feeding on it?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I found out that there were 40,000 children stranded all over Southeast Asia who American GIs had fathered [The Story of a Girl-TED Talk<\/a>]. In every place where the United States has had a military base, there were illegitimate children of these GIs. And the local government says these are the children of GIs. And the American government says, they are children of prostitutes or, you know, they\u2019re not ours, it\u2019s not our responsibility. The military knew all about this. They actually had signs in Korea that said these were the 10 bars where you were most likely to get VD [ older term for sexually transmitted diseases]. They would inspect the houses where the guys live with the girls. So, the military was completely aware of this. Obviously, they were, but they would take no responsibility for it.<\/p>\n \u201cI had made a lot of money. Robyn\u2019s trip appeared on 40 magazine covers after the Geographic, and after three months, you get the rights back. So, Contact sold the pictures worldwide. I made a fortune from then. I always gave half of everything I made to Robyn. I still do, even today, when people buy the pictures, half of the money always goes to Robyn. So, I decided to take my half of the money and found six children in different countries. My idea was to spend six months traveling and photographing their lives. And I had this idea. I was going to solicit American magazines and send a copy to every member of Congress, every senator, and every mayor, blah, blah, blah, to try to raise awareness.<\/p>\n I went to many different American magazines, and nobody would touch the story about illegitimate American GIs\u2019 children. So, I went to GEO magazine [originally from Germany], which said, \u2018We love this story. It\u2019s so powerful, it\u2019s so important, it\u2019s a cover story.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I worked with them for months. I helped them find a writer. The whole thing was laid out, and I approved everything; all the cover pictures and the opening spread. I left for an assignment, called back in to check the captions just before it went to press, and was going over all the captions when\u2026 [Smolan realized that they had removed all the incriminating photos, citing low circulation and the fear of risky articles hurting them].<\/p>\n Smolan was furious as he had worked two years on the story on his own dime.<\/p>\n \u201cGive me back the story,\u201d he screams. \u201cI\u2019ll go somewhere else with it. They said, \u2018We\u2019re going to press tomorrow. It\u2019s too late to pull it.\u2019 I said, then take my name off the story\u2026 It\u2019s an embarrassment. They said, \u2018If you take your name off the story, we\u2019ll drop it as a cover story, and you\u2019ve hurt the kids even more.\u2019 I said, \u2018F**k you.\u2019 So, they took my name off the story and dropped it as a cover.\u201d<\/p>\n Cutting Out the Photo Editor to Have Your Own Voice<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cI realized, you know what?\u201d reflects Smolan. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how good a photographer I am. I will never have any control over the finished product. I\u2019m always going to be a cog in somebody else\u2019s machine. So I was sitting in a bar in Bangkok with Philip Jones Griffiths<\/a>, JP [Jean-Pierre] Laffont<\/a>, Burnett,<\/a> and others. And I was so upset, and we all were. Everybody\u2019s telling their story about how much they hated their editors and how betrayed they felt.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I said, \u2018You know what, we should all do a book ourselves with no f**king editors. You guys are always asking me about Australia.\u00a0 We should do a day-in-the-life of Australia. We should bring like 30 photographers and do the Olympics of photography. And no editors, just photographers,\u2019 and so all my friends at two in the morning in Bangkok, blowing off steam.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, Rick, you go organize it, and we\u2019ll all come, they chanted. For them, it was just a random conversation. For me, I was so disillusioned with journalism. So, I met with 35 publishers, all of whom laughed me out of there.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the Prime Minister of Australia had been so kind to me, I went back to him and said, \u2018Look, you brought me to Australia. Could you bring 100 photographers to Australia?\u2019 And he said, I don\u2019t have that kind of budget. But I\u2019ll help you. I\u2019ll set up meetings for you with the CEOs of Qantas, Kodak Australia, Hertz Australia, Hyatt Australia, Steve Jobs, and you ask them for free airline tickets, computers, film, hotel rooms, and cars [for your project].<\/p>\n And then came the surprise\u2014the Prime Minister wanted to be one of the 100 photographers. Smolan originally had misgivings about any \u201cselling out\u201d to big brands, but it all worked out in the end, and the book was a success.<\/p>\n \u201cOur sponsors all ran full-page ads saying they were so proud to be the official airline or film, and we suddenly had multimillion-dollar ad campaigns,\u201d smiles Smolan. \u201cIf a publisher had said yes to me, I would have made 50 cents a book. I would have done one book and gone back to shooting, but here I had learnt how to publish, publicize, and market it.<\/p>\n \u201cThen the Governor of Hawaii came to Australia, and somebody gave him a copy of the book, and his staff called us and said, \u2018Our 25th anniversary is coming up. George wants to know if you\u2019ll come and do [a book for] us.\u2019 And then American Express called and said, \u2018We\u2019re fighting with the JCB card in Japan. Could we sponsor A Day in the Life of Japan<\/a>? And so, I never went back to shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started making a one-hour movie about how we did the book, and then we started putting up exhibits. And then when CDs came out, we started doing interactive CDs that came with the book. When everybody and their brother had a cell phone in their pocket, we did America 24\/7<\/a>, inviting the public to participate. We had 2,000 photographers, but 25,000 members of the public were also shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody could get the book, and then you could order a copy with your own [photo on a] wrap-around dust jacket. IKEA commissioned us to do two books. About the concept of home, no IKEA products. But just what in the world does home mean? Paul McCartney wrote the introduction to the book in England, and Matt Groening of The Simpsons wrote the introduction to America at Home<\/a>. With each of our books, we keep adding technology.<\/p>\n Keeping the Excitement Alive in Book Publishing<\/strong> <\/p>\n \u201cAfter doing the 10th Day in Life book, it got to be a bit old, like it felt I\u2019d solved the same problem over and over again in different countries, and it wasn\u2019t as exciting,\u201d says the book maker. \u201cI was a little jaded because every book we did became the number one book in that country, and it was sort of a formula that now wasn\u2019t really as exciting as it was at the beginning, or scary. I\u2019m better when I\u2019m a little scared.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father said, \u2018Why don\u2019t you do a book with the world of medicine, how the human race is learning to heal itself?\u2019 And so, we did a book called The Power to Heal: Ancient Arts & Modern Medicine<\/a>. We had 100 photographers worldwide for a week, and one in three doctors in America received a free copy from 11 drug companies. We raised $5 million in two weeks from 11 drug companies. It has dwarfed everything we ever raised for the Day in Life books.<\/p>\n And so, my father set me on a new path. He said, instead of a broad look at a country, what if you do a deep dive? Then we did 24 Hours in Cyberspace<\/a>. I spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Andy Grove [CEO of Intel] came up to me after my talk and said, \u2018Would you do a book about the microprocessor? And I said, I don\u2019t do annual reports. I\u2019m a journalist. And he said, \u2018Well, what if it wasn\u2019t about Intel? How many times do you think a microprocessor touches your life in a day? And I said, two or three, you know, go to the bank to get money out. He said, \u201932 times. Your car wouldn\u2019t start, and you couldn\u2019t transfer money. You could not make a phone call. These little chips, over the last 30 years, have crept into the background, secretly, quietly into cars, into every aspect of our lives.\u2019 And so, we did a book. One Digital Day: How the Microchip is Changing Our World<\/a>. It was on the cover of Fortune magazine. It was the most extensive excerpt in Fortune\u2019s history.<\/p>\n \u201cNext, we did Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water<\/a> to the world and The Human Face of Big Data.<\/a> And then, most recently, we did a book about the history of social justice through the eyes of photographers, The Good Fight: America\u2019s Ongoing Struggle for Justice.<\/a> With every book, we\u2019ve added this sort of technology hook. There are custom covers, smartphone-enabled books, and whatever else. So that\u2019s been our motto. We never let sponsors exercise any editorial control, but we use their resources to promote and publicize the book. We\u2019ve been fortunate. Every book we\u2019ve done has been an enormous success.<\/p>\n \u201cI reached out to all my friends who\u2019ve been on the campaign trail [with Obama], and I said, \u2018Do you have pictures that were never published that you shot while you were covering him? We got 40,000 pictures from photographers who had been on the campaign trail. And that was the Obama Time Capsule<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done 80 books. Because of the American 24\/7 Series, we did every single state in one year. We did 50 books in one year, which is stupid.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Smolan has often been ahead of the technology curve <\/p>\n \u201cWe also paid everybody with Macintoshes,\u201d says Smolan after a bit of thinking. \u201cWhen we did A Day in the Life of Japan, Apple gave us office space, and Steve Jobs came over one day without knowing about it. And at first, he was kind of like, \u2018Who let these people in here?\u2019 And then we spoke to him, and I said, \u2018Look, we have $1,000 to pay every photographer for A Day in the Life of Japan. Could we buy Macintoshes for everybody?\u2019 which were then costing $3,000 for Macintosh, printer, and software. And so, we worked out a deal with Apple. We probably went through almost 1000 Macs [over different books] for all the editors and photographers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re the first ones to put a CD-ROM into a book. We\u2019re the first to mass-customize a New York Times bestseller [with your photos on the dust jacket]. We were the first to do smartphone-enabled books where you point your phone at a picture in the book, and it plays the TED Talk. [We started] Photo One in 1980-81, where we created a worldwide network for photographers. But it was too early in the process.<\/p>\n From Alice to Ocean got a tremendous amount of attention because it was the first book to come with a CD, or actually two CD-ROMS. Kodak and Apple sponsored the book, and Apple bundled the CD with 500,000 Macintoshes. Every Macintosh sold that year came with our CD. It got attention not just from the book world, but also from the technology and media worlds \u2014 everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times. The publicity for that book was incredible because it was sort of a merging of the book and the CD-ROM. And then, a year later, we published a book called Passage to Vietnam, which also had links to the internet. And there was an interactive CD that also won the top interactive media awards that year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did a book called 24 Hours in Cyberspace<\/a>. We worked out a deal with Jeff Bezos at Amazon that allowed people to order the book and upload their own pictures. And so, you were the co-author of the book. Your picture\u00a0appeared next to Oprah Winfrey on page 32, and the invitation to attend Obama\u2019s inauguration [in The Obama Time Capsule, 2009] bore your name, making it the first best-selling, mass-customized book in history. We kept trying to add more to it.<\/p>\n In the last three books we\u2019ve done, you can point your phone at a photograph, and it streams a YouTube video, a documentary, or whatever.<\/p>\n From Photography to Books to TV Serials <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing a Netflix TV science fiction series right now, Tunnel in the Sky,\u201d he says with excitement in his voice. It\u2019s my favorite Robert A. Heinlein book since I was 16. I have Guillermo del Toro\u2019s [3 Academy Award Winner] creative partner, J. Miles Dale, as my producer\u2013so Miles and I and the show runner, who did Fear the Walking Dead. I own the book, and I brought them into the picture. The three of us pitched Apple, Hulu, Amazon, Disney, and Netflix, and we chose Netflix because my partners have worked with it before.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a TV series, and we hope it\u2019ll be three years, three seasons. And I don\u2019t know anything. It\u2019s a brand-new world. I\u2019ve done documentaries; I\u2019ve never done scripted before. Imagine Grand Central Station, and every train track is a wormhole to someplace else in the galaxy. And Earth has become very polluted.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so every year they have a contest for 100 teenagers. The best teenagers on earth get to colonize new planets. And the graduation exercise before you get a planet is sending the 100 kids to one planet for a week. You take one weapon. They don\u2019t want the kids to die, but they want to weed out the ones who aren\u2019t the smartest, brightest, or most adaptable. It\u2019s like Lost in Space meets Lord of the Flies, showing how these children build a new society. It\u2019s not dystopian. There\u2019s a lot of conflict, but it\u2019s hopeful.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, when I was 16, I met Elliot, or no, when I was 16, I saw Elliot\u2019s work for the first time [which led to my photography career], and when I was 16, I read this book. So, 16 was a very formative year.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026And that\u2019s my long, boring story.\u201d<\/p>\n About the author<\/strong>: Phil Mistry is a photographer and teacher based in Atlanta, GA. He started one of the first digital camera classes in New York City at\u00a0The\u00a0International Center of Photography<\/a> in the 90s. He was the director and teacher for Sony\/Popular Photography magazine\u2019s Digital Days Workshops. You can reach him\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0033_2-527x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Student-800x533.jpg\")
Pic by Phil Mistry <\/p>\n![\"Newsweek](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Newsweek2-575x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2014-07-18-04.32.17-522x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Five](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Image-22-800x448.png\")
Some of the many TIME covers shot by Rick Smolan ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Muhamad-Ali-800x537.jpg\")
Muhammad Ali in Japan to fight Japanese professional wrestler Antonio Inoki for TIME magazine- Pic by Rick Smolan <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/PO-SRS-32.jpeg\")
Pic by Ridk Smolan ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/097_tracks.jpeg\")
Pic by Rick Smolan <\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0003_2-2-643x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/027_tracks-800x536.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/27.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/047_tracks-522x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Tracks-cover_3D-800x687.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Award-Ceremony-800x533.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/JB19888-534x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/With-AwardOprah-800x533.jpg\")
Pic by Phil Mistry <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/NG-Cover-553x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/55540-Against-All-Odds-Productions37260.jpeg\")
An Amerasian girl with her grandmother in Korea <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0002_2-533x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/America247.cover_-703x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0001_2-590x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/014_14_2-555x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0025_2-533x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Five](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Day-in-the-life-covers.002-800x450.jpg\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Day-in-the-life-covers.001-800x450.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Left:](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Canada-copy-800x591.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Image-2-544x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Promotional](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG0006_2-2-641x800.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n