Bio
Jennifer Smith-Mayo is a freelance documentary photographer. Since receiving her first camera as a gift at the age of ten, she has gone on to become a photography student, photojournalist, commercial photographer, and photography lecturer and instructor. Jennifer is currently accepting photography assignments; please contact her for more information.
In addition to commercial photography of products, places, and people for print and web use, Jennifer specializes in photography of farming and rural living. Her extensive portfolio also includes images of England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, agriculture in New England, small town life in Maine, and many more subjects. Take a tour through the online gallery here.
Jennifer's work has traveled across the United States in exhibitions, has been featured in a variety of New England galleries, and was included in a group show at the Hype Gallery in London, England.
Jennifer's photography is regularly featured in Down East Magazine. Her work has also appeared in National Geographic Geotourism Mapguide, Big Sky Journal, Western Art & Architecture, Wine Spectator, The Dalesman Magazine, DK Books Eyewitness Travel Guide Dublin and Maine 24/7, Globe Pequot Insiders' Guide Series, Express Westerns' Where Legends Ride, Farmworker Justice, Fly Rod & Reel, Shooting Sportsman, Inner Tapestry, New England Farmer, as well as in various newspapers and advertising campaigns. Her photographs have been selected for a variety of juried exhibitions and her solo shows include Kelmscott (Rare Breeds) Farm: Through the Seasons and Futzing with Focus: Images in Motion. Her photographs are in private collections all over North America.
Recent projects include launching the new documentary series Growing Local, which seeks to create awareness across cultures of the importance of using local foods. Jennifer created the series to examine traditional but popular regional recipes and to adapt them for use with only local ingredients. Each episode of the series documents—through still photography, ambient sound, and audio interviews—not only the creation of the adapted recipe, but also traces the ingredients' origins and researches the current status of the region's local food movement.
Jennifer graduated with a B.A. in Communications with an Emphasis in Photography from Goucher College, Towson, Maryland. She is currently pursuing her Master of Liberal Studies degree through the University of Maine in Orono and also works as an digital photography instructor for Ellsworth Adult Education. During December 2007 and February 2008, Jennifer's students hosted two exhibitions of work, Local Visions, at the Riverside Cafe and the Ellsworth Public Library in Ellsworth, Maine. Jennifer is also on the Group of Stewards of the Good Life Center—the last hand-built home of Helen and Scott Nearing in Harborside (Brooskville), Maine.
She has worked in nearly all aspects of her degree: photography, film (including Hidden Treasures of the Jesuits, The Crow and Where the Rivers Flow North), television, web design, graphic design, newspaper, and radio. Throughout the years, her passion for taking photographs has never wavered. "Photography," she says, "makes me tick. It gets me out of a comfortable bed in the wee hours of the night to shoot."
Jennifer and her husband Matthew Mayo, a novelist, and their two dear dogs spent the past year based in Bozeman, Montana exploring the Northern Rockies, and have recently relocated to coastal Maine.