biography Paul Smyres photographer writer website design internet consultant

Biography
Photographer and writer Paul Smyres was born and raised in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains, in the village of Mussoorie, in North Central India. In 1966, at the age of fourteen, his parents left India permanently. They brought their 4 children across the Middle East, from Karachi, Pakistan, to Amsterdam, Holland, traveling in a Volkswagen camper. During that journey the family had the opportunity to visit Tehran, Bagdhad, Jerusalem, and Istanbul, as well as a number of European cities. While in India Mr. Smyres attended a private American school named Woodstock School, in Mussoorie. about 20 miles north of Dehra Dun. Situated at about 7,000 feet in altitude, the view from the school overlooks the Northern Plains of India, with a view north of the eternally snow-covered peaks of the high Himalayas. He attended high school in a NY small town in NY's southern tier, near Binghamton. College was in Albion, Michigan.
Paul's father, Robert, is a retired Methodist minister and missionary who spent seventeen years in India. His mother, also retired, was an elementary school teacher for many years. They both are healthy and live near Jacksonville, Florida. Mr Smyres has two sisters, both teachers, and a younger brother Phillip who is in the college textbook business. He was also born in India. Paul's grandfather, Roy, was a Methodist missionary to Africa and a photographer. He was an early pioneer into the Belgian Congo in the 1920's on behalf of the Methodist Church. The elder Smyres was an ordained minister, and during his life went around the world several times, taking historical and documentary photographs for the Methodist Church, in addition to preaching. He was known for his entertaining stories and sense of humor and lived until he was 99. "It was a truly wonderful experience growing up in India, and it would have been impossible if my family had not chosen missionary work. I have not continued the family tradition, however, because I believe in a more universal and non-sectarian approach to solving various social problems. During my life I have been able to witness directly many religious practices, including those performed by Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Jews, Sikhs, and others in their daily lives, and I am often inspired by them. My own contentment comes from a meditative practice I do that was taught to me during my early college years."
	Since his return to America, Paul has traveled to 40 states and lived for several years in six or seven. He worked in the tourist industry for 8 years, mostly in Florida, and has been to Canada, Venezuela, Italy, England, and Puerto Rico since returning to the United States. During early trips to India he visited many famous cities in Europe, including Rome, Geneva, Vienna, Amsterdam, Istanbul, and many others. During his two three-week visits to Venezuela, he hiked and traveled by horseback into the mountains in the Western part of the country. He now lives in Millerton, NY, where he has a studio on an old farm property. His wife is a trained artist and Jungian analyst.
In addition to his private work and this website, he has photographed hundreds of infants, and children, at elementary and dance schools for several photography companies. One of his favorite subjects is pets, and he collects their portraits He's done a lot of pet photography. See some of the samples: cats, dogs, parrots, horses. He also does portrait work New York City. Paul works in Millerton, NY, in NY's Hudson Valley.

Mr. Smyres has three children. The two older are boys. Since they were very young, he has engaged them in many outdoor recreation activities, especially camping.
Robert, 25, is the advertising manager for Living Being Media ™, and is doing most of the content work on our sister site: www.livingbeing.com He's especially interested in media, broadcasting, writing, and travel and is quite fluent in Spanish. He has worked on several school newspapers, and once met both Hillary and Bill Clinton. He's participated in some political activism clubs. He's a good rap lyricist, too, and produces rap poetry that sometimes has political commentary, or is just for fun. He likes music and has produced a CD called "Making Tracks". He also enjoys gardening and biology. Robert lives in Miami, Florida with his brother Evan. rsmyres@gmail.com
Evan, 22, is a pilot and has already done many solo flights in a Cessna 152 and 172, accumulating over 75 hours of air time. He's very athletic and enjoys the outdoors. He's studying business and aviation in college and plans a career in commercial aviation.
Sarah, 20, is married and mother of a young girl. She is taking a break from her teacher training plans to start a family.
" I chose photography as a medium of expression for several reasons. First, it forces one to focus on single moments, tiny fractions of a second. I find that very exhilarating because it requires an alert concentration and deep sense of appreciation. In my work I seek primarily to present pure beauty, a reflection of life as it is. Consequently, I rarely use any filter except a polarizer, unless I'm shooting in black and white. I try to extract the beautiful and sublime from ordinary scenes. I also look for odd juxtapositions of images that are real, instead of being posed. Secondly, one photograph can say so much, for so long a time. Because we live in a visual age, photography in all its forms is the medium preferred by the public, primarily because it is instantaneous and transcends words. Occasionally a single image can be so powerful it becomes a permanent part of our conscious memory. The transformational and healing quality of images has been noted by famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and many others. The average person is bombarded daily with an immense amount of imagery, some of it horrible or chaotic. Most of it is also moving, that is, in video form, which can be very distracting or even disturbing. Because a moving image contains inherently more information, it is often presumed to be more valuable. However, it is generally easier to remember a still image. The challenge is therefore to choose which image to record out of many possibilities. By paying close attention to those images which evoke harmony and beauty, a sense of upliftment comes, and a realization of the many gifts that exist simply by being alive.
Although I enjoy writing, too, it's very time-consuming and solitary. Photography is a far more social activity. A portrait photographer must see the beautiful in people and try to draw it out. That aspect of it enables me to meet and learn to appreciate all kinds of people. Portrait photographers must sometimes work with many people, and often with children or pets whose behavior is unpredictable. It requires great patience, at times."
An avid computer enthusiast for many years, Mr. Smyres also studied basic electronics and has assembled many computers. With this website, he has combined his interest in computers and photography, using the medium of the internet not only as a live portfolio, but an educational and entertaining resource available to all. This site is in the earliest stages of production, and is being developed slowly according to funding. "Much of my work on this website is simply a record of common images, objects, and situations we deal with daily but do not normally remember. I try to record those images with as much attention to artistic principles as possible under the circumstances, but there is deliberately a journalistic and storytelling element in many of the photos. There may be asymmetry in one or more ways, often reflecting the view that is actually seen, not an idealized one. One of the advantages of publishing directly to the internet is the ability to immediately crop unwanted elements of the image. This allows great flexibility in shooting, which is important because many of the photos are shot under far less than ideal conditions, and often with a simple camera. I often use a small digital camera, the Nikon Coolpix 950.
Mr. Smyres created this internet site after being moved by the events at Columbine High School in April 1999 and in Kosovo. He intends to help establish a foundation to benefit young victims of violence. Since the events of September 11, 2001, Mr. Smyres stepped up his efforts to enlarge and promote this site. Having seen a variety of cultures and been a witness to extreme poverty, he wishes to use his craft in a manner that will help young victims in some small way. Since the internet is such a powerful communication tool and has a proven capacity to generate enormous sums of money, he believes it is appropriate to use it to help the people who, for all practical purposes, cannot help themselves. That is, the children who become victims of senseless war and other forms of violence. A variety of merchandise is offered on this site, and during 2007, a large selection of many kinds of products will be offered for sale here. Further information will be found periodically on this site. Do you like this site? Make a small $ 5 donation to help keep it growing and you may use 3 photos from our site for personal use.

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