Geraint Smith is from a town in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, a coal-mining community where his mother reared four children and his father worked at the mine. As a child, he and his family would go to the local cinema to watch Western films, which he describes as being filled with “endless skies and expansive locations. . . . Looking back today, I can’t help thinking I unconsciously knew I would live in the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest.” At age three, he began to carry the family Kodak Brownie camera, and his father occasionally allowed him to take a picture. Smith identifies this as his earliest interest in photography. After moving to Los Angeles at 22, Smith made photography his medium of expression, embarking on a career as a freelance photographer. Ten years later, Smith moved to Taos. “What I discovered living in the Southwest . . . is just how much room there is in me to remember and rediscover the peace at the center of my soul.”

geraintsmith.com

Gathering Storm (21 Chairs) was photographed at the Wild Rivers Recreation Area near Questa, New Mexico.