Alumni and Supporters

Darren Smith

Bachelor of Communications, 2006

Personally and professionally, portrait photographer Darren Smith has always followed the call to adventure - from leaving his hometown in Virginia, United States as a teenager to study on the other side of the world, to roaming the globe in search of the perfect shot.

Now based in Amsterdam with his first book published, Darren says he only discovered photography during his time as an international student at Edith Cowan University (ECU).

Originally set on a career in filmmaking, Darren stumbled across ECU online and was instantly sold on starting life in Perth, Western Australia.

“I just had that call for adventure - I saw beautiful beaches and thought okay, I'm going to do it. Just do something different,” Darren explains.

“The fact that ECU also had WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) and there were actors that were coming up and the opportunity to collaborate with them and really learning a completely different perspective that wasn't going to be just Hollywood.”

Darren immersed himself in university life, thoroughly enjoying his time in the student village and his studies, majoring in Film and Video.

“Where I'm from is a very small town and small towns have a different way of thinking. So to me, Perth was really eye-opening and internationally minded, being surrounded by so many people that were of different backgrounds and from different countries,” he says.

“One of the great things is that you had the freedom to explore your own interests within your craft. My lecturers were always saying ‘go out and try to film that. Make a lot of mistakes, because the only way you can really learn is by making mistakes’.

“And you grow through that. You learn which tools you actually need to do the job. And they were always extremely supportive of going out there and just doing it.”

Taking up photography as an elective during his degree, it wasn’t long before Darren was set on a different path – even meeting his wife where he completed his final year internship.

“I had met a bunch of photographers, and they were needing someone to do lighting for their sets. They knew I knew about lighting, and then it jump-started my career, working as a lighting assistant for other photographers,” Darren says.

“I did my internship at Foto Freo and I started working almost straight away as I was finishing my degree because of all these happy coincidences.”

After graduating in 2006 with a Bachelor of Communications, Darren honed his craft working for a fashion photographer in New York City and France, before returning to Perth.

“We ended up coming back to Perth, because we loved the lifestyle at the time,” he says. “I started working at Acorn Photo agency, which is the top agency for architecture photography and a lot of commercial photography in Perth, and I worked there for many years.”

Ready to try something new in 2016, Darren and his wife moved to Amsterdam.

“We were already thinking what to do next, and the idea of being in another part of the world again, closer to a few more things - we just thought, let's do it,” Darren says. “When I came to Amsterdam, I set about doing my own photography practice. I was doing portfolio work and starting on what ultimately became the skeleton of my book project, and everything just had a natural, organic growth from that point, both in life and career wise.”

The striking coffee-table book Mayflies features 120 powerful portraits that highlight raw, unfiltered identity. Over seven years Darren travelled across three continents, immersing himself in festivals, underground gatherings and cultural movements to document radical self-expression.

“I started going out and doing photography of people in the subcultures and nightlife here, and that just took me on a journey of seeking out the core of individuality that exists around the world,” he says. “And I really felt like the only way I could do that is to have a global mindset and to seek it out in iconic places around the world.”

The project took Darren everywhere from Day of the Dead in Mexico, Burning Man in the USA to a pagan carnival in North Macedonia.

“It really started with this fascination of people that were bold enough to express themselves, but then the book just became a love letter to people and societies that emanate creativity and belonging around the world,” he says.

Coinciding with the Mayflies release, Darren’s portraits are now being displayed in exhibitions across Europe, including France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

“The next phase is introducing it to people that have never seen it before, and inviting them to be a part of the conversation,” he says.

“My vision is to bring the book and photographs back to the communities that inspired it, through exhibitions and workshops. I want the world to see them the way I do.”

Darren says his time at ECU helped shape him and his career, and 20 years later still catches up with friends he met there.

“Those encounters really shaped my practice and also just who I am,” he says.

“One of the reasons I moved to Europe was I knew that I had an international network of people that were from ECU that I could call upon, and it was really wanting to be closer to those friends and that experience.”

His connection with ECU has come full circle, with Mayflies now available in ECU libraries as well as online at www.mayfliesbook.com.