VII Mentor Program 2023-24
Byron Smith is an American freelance photographer currently based in Athens, Greece. Before moving to Athens in the summer of 2019, he worked as a stringer in New York City for the better part of the last decade. His work has been published in numerous publications including The New York Times, Getty Images, Le Monde, Libération, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and The Wall Street Journal. Smith’s work has recently been recognized through numerous awards and fellowships. In 2022, he was selected as a VII Academy Fellow. A selection of his work in Ukraine from 2022 was exhibited at the U.S. Capitol and Oxford University in 2023, garnering significant recognition for its depiction of the ongoing conflict. Overall, Smith’s body of work reflects his passion and commitment to the visual documentation of these times and his dedication to capturing the human experience through his lens as closely as possible.