Life Through A Lens
Posted on August 1, 2014 by bob in Features
Massive dunes near Erg Chebbi, Morocco.
by Brenda Robertson Dennis; photos by Twinkle Smith (unless otherwise noted).
W.H. Auden, one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, once wrote: “You owe it to all of us to get on with what you’re good at.” Twinkle Smith seems to be doing just that.
Photography adventures have long been part of Smith’s life.
A Montgomery native, retired Anesthesiologist, wife, and mother of three grown children, Smith spent most of her adult life carving out a colorful and adventurous path, traveling the globe diving and photographing the world as she sees it. Her father, local pediatrician Dr. Bill Daniel, was an avid photographer, traveling extensively as a volunteer with Project Hope, an international healthcare organization providing medicine and volunteers to underserved countries.
Twinkle Smith and her series of lifeguard shacks that decorate the office of Sadie’s Global Travel. (photo by Bob Corley)
During Daniel’s travels he captured scenery and moments with his camera, and would share these with family and friends back home. Though he entered and won several International Nikon photo contests, photography remained a hobby.
“We were all excellent models for him from birth on,” says Smith, referring to herself and her four siblings.
“He enjoyed not just travel but people photography. I inherited a lot of that from him. Not just the skill and the eye but the love for getting the feel for where you are.”
At age 10, Smith began taking pictures with a Brownie, getting her first real camera, an Olympus, for her 16th birthday.
“I was sure I wasn’t going to get a car, so I was pretty happy with that,” she laughs.
On Sandy Island, a tiny speck of sand off the coasts of Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the northeast Caribbean.
After high school she studied Marine Science at the University of the Pacific in California, where, during her course of study, she developed a love for scuba diving. A career shift to medical technology brought her back to Alabama and graduate school at the University of Alabama Birmingham, but the field left her bored. Finally, she bit the bullet, attended medical school, and became an anesthesiologist. It was there she also met her husband.
They returned to Montgomery 30 years ago, and while it’s home, the world was her family’s playground. They took their children on diving trips to the Caribbean, and it’s become a passion the family shares to this day.
“I love to travel,” Smith says. “I think I watched ‘Adventures in Paradise’ too much when I was young. We would take the kids and charter a boat where we could get away from everything. There was no TV and I think they realized they could enjoy this thing together and get along.”
Half of her trips are dive oriented, and all involve a camera. She’s been to every continent but Antarctica, a place she has no interest in visiting. During her travels she captures extraordinary scenery and moments in time from such exotic locales as The Philippines, Thailand, Palau, Africa, Italy and Croatia. Smith long ago traded in her dark room for the convenience of a digital camera, with the colors and the composition of her works telling stories that require no words.
“Dubrovnic At Night”
One of her favorite locations is Croatia and the Dalmatia Coast of the Adriatic Sea. To hear her talk about one of these trips is to be transported to the place itself.
“It’s the most beautiful place,” she says, almost in a whisper. “You take a boat and make stops at these places that are just wonderful. One time we walked through about midnight or so. There was a guy with a guitar, and one with a flute, and another with a violin. The moon was coming up and there was a breeze. It was just one of the most magical times. Walking back, I took a night picture that looks like what you see in old cities. It’s all limestone, but it’s been walked on so much that it looks like marble and it looks wet. Like it’s rained but it hasn’t.”
Wildlife portraits captured during Smith’s travels. (photo by Bob Corley)
Like her father, Smith’s photographs are for her own pleasure, and for the pleasure of sharing them with others. They’re not published in international travel magazines or hanging in art galleries, though they can be viewed on occasion. Several hang in her husband’s waiting room at Jackson Hospital. Some, from Thailand, are on loan to Sadie’s World Travels.
Smith’s aspirations are clearly to keep traveling, diving, and capturing the beauty of the world around her, just as she sees it.
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