Charlene Smith

Once while photographing in Maine, an evidently shy man began discussing the river we were shooting and cameras, I inquired what work he did. He said he worked for an electrical contractor.
‘What do you do for him?’
He visibly swallowed, ‘I drive a truck.’
‘Do you take many photographs?’
‘No, it’s all boring.’
I marveled at the man’s sense of his unimportance and how that signified skewed societal values, imagine if every truck driver in America stopped work tomorrow? The country would halt. But if politicians or investment bankers failed to go to work, no one would notice.
And so I write simply, I want my work to be accessible to those who use public transport, not as a choice, but because they have no other option. I believe in the quiet majority, and their beliefs don’t have to accord with mine; the freedom to disagree underpins that fragile work in eternal process we call democracy.
I’ve had 14 books published and am Nelson Mandela’s authorized biographer.