Her images capture fleeting moments of beauty and joy.
“Stillness, movement, meaning, connection, composition…I’m driven to create images that have some compelling combination of these elements.”
“You were exactly what we wanted in a photographer…(and) to say the photographs are beautiful doesn’t begin to explain how wonderful they are. You seemed to be at the right moment at the right time. You caught so many moments that might not have seemed important to most people, but were so important to me.”
Meg has photographed extensively for notable as well as recognizable clients, including Academy-award winners, Grammy winners, and Governors of State. She’s photographed weddings so small that she has been the witness, and weddings so large that she’s led a team of five photographers.
“I remain in awe at how you managed to be such a graceful, calm and reassuring presence while lugging around all that heavy equipment! And it was such a pleasure to work with you throughout. I know that each of us enjoyed the experience far more just having you with us, lens in hand, creating an indelible record for the years to come.
Thank you, Meg. We will always be in your debt.”
Meet
Meg Smith
Meg’s great-great-grandfather was a studio portrait photographer in Los Angeles, and her mother a longtime favorite subject of an esteemed Hollywood photographer. Growing up, Meg was enamored with the photographs he took of her parents’ wedding at the Hotel Bel-Air. “They were classic black and white photographs,” she says, “deceptively simple in their beauty, ease and intimacy.”
Local to the Napa Valley wine region, Meg’s childhood offered a wealth of inspiration as her mother – a dedicated amateur photographer – practiced her art on her daughter and friends. Rolls of film would hang from the bathroom shower curtain rod, and Meg would observe her mother transform the long strips into tangible treasures.
While still in high school, Meg enrolled in photography courses at the local college and worked in her home darkroom. Later, as an art history major at UC Berkeley, she embraced documentary photojournalism and studied under the tutelage of social documentary photographer Ken Light. It was while photographing riots and protests that she discovered a natural ability to capture fleeting moments and turn them into poignant reflections on life.
She was accepted into an internship at the auction house Butterfield & Butterfield, evaluating and cataloging historic photographs usually seen in galleries and private collections, followed by several years of working for luminaries such as Academy Award-winning film producer Saul Zaentz, international photojournalist Peter Menzel and National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear. The experiences expanded her understanding of photography as a complex art form. “I was – and still am – deeply moved by the tangible nature of film,” she says, “and in awe of the alchemy of the latent image.”
Eventually, she felt powerfully drawn to being back behind the camera herself, although the direction her work took was unexpected considering her background. But it made perfect, almost poetic sense. A friend, who was a painter, asked Meg to photograph her wedding and offered a painting as payment. Meg quickly found her footing and soon turned into one of the most sought-after wedding photographers in the U.S. “I’ve always felt that photography was my destiny. It’s in my blood. Apart from being a mother and having the honor of raising my son, photography has been my life’s work.”
Meg divides her time between Napa Valley and Los Angeles.
Featured In
Lifestyle and Hospitality
Meg captures unfussy elegance with authenticity and brings that same sensibility to her commercial work. Clients includes Chanel, Magnolia Network, Men’s Wearhouse, Seabourn Cruises, The Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, and Opus One Winery, among others.