Amanda Smith
Amanda Lee Smith started out her career in Photography in Bay City, Michigan in 1992 where she created photographic artwork for CD and Album covers. Growing up around the agricultural world of some parts of Michigan, she, like most young women, found her love and passion in horses. Cowboy boots and jeans were and still are a not so ordinary part of her wardrobe, and her love of the west began to bloom.
Traveling to California in 1994 she began shooting for the Bulls Only Rodeo, and the Western Circuit of the PRCA through 2005. Early on in her rodeo photography days she realized that something was missing in her world of “Western Photography”… Art.
She created her first piece of Western Photographic Art in 1994 called “After the Ride” and gained nationwide recognition for her piece that placed first in the National Color Awards.
Smith shot rodeo on the professional circuit in the western states for nine years, winning several awards and gaining excellent recognition as a premier rodeo photographer. During those nine years, Smith also opened her own photography studio in California creating portraits for people from all over the country, including PRCA Rodeo contestants on the Western Circuit.
In 2004 she was invited to several ranches in Arizona, California and Wyoming to create an incredible documentary called “The American Cowboy” where for three solid and very wonderful months she captured real life photos of real working cowboys and cowgirls and turned them into works of art that won numerous awards both nationally and internationally, and have been published in numerous publications, books and newspapers.
Her artwork has been collected by Corporate entities, utilized in nationwide fundraisers including the American Heart Association and Cancer Relay for Life, and has been highly collected by both private and public collectors from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between.
In 2005, Smith relocated her studio and her photographic art, to the great Cowboy State; Wyoming, where she still resides today.
During her career as a photographer, and Western Photographic artist she published an award winning, Associated Press Newspaper for eight years. Spreading the news and circulating statewide with excellent articles and incredible journalistic photography, she made history when she became the first woman owned non-daily newspaper in the country, to launch on the Kindle and iPad, and the first woman owned non-daily small newspaper to launch on the Kindle and iPad in the world. She was a pioneer in being the first news source in Wyoming to deliver live news and alerts to the people of the state of Wyoming, paving the way for other news sources to provide immediate and accessible real-time news in the Cowboy State, something that had never been done before. Smith won numerous photography awards over the years with her newspaper including First Place with the National Newspaper Association in the Best Local News Photographer category, nationwide.
Smith now holds photography classes in her studio, and teaches both photography lessons and western photographic art lessons to students from all over the state of Wyoming. She spends the time in between, chasing her passion, creating real Western Photographic Art, for the world to enjoy.
Smith lives on a working cattle and sheep ranch in Wyoming with her husband, who is as crazy about her photography career, as she is about him.
