Who is Stephen Smith?

Born in Ottawa August 1970, Stephen gained notoriety amongst family, friends and neighbors with his wildly entertaining antics. For instance, without word or pause, he ventured out on his tricycle at the age of 3 to explore his neighborhood. He crossed a busy side road, walked across undeveloped land, through a hole in a fence, into mud, which claimed his boots and socks and eventually slowed him down to a halt short of railway tracks. I suppose as he sat there you may venture to think he may have watched his brief life pass before his eyes or you may think he thought little of this predicament not knowing what may seal his fate, or he thought only of how pissed he was over the mud incident… Nope, he simply thought, “Nice eh?...” Well that caused a lot of panic, relief and confusion.. and it was just one of many adventures or moments he has had in his colourful life
Stephen has since become involved in film making, photography, Digital imaging, 3D design, web development, music composition, and many other roles in these areas. It all started with a hand me down Brownie and graduated to Nikon’s, Hasselblad’s, and many other cameras over the years. His experience and skill dates back to 1987 when at only 17 years old, he registered Stephen Smith Photography and started his career as a fashion, sports, recreational photographer. As his talent and style grew so did his direction. He started to do travel and tourism photography incorporating fashion and model work when shooting in Europe, the Caribbean, United States and of course Canada! Later on he got involved in theatre photography shooting for CSM productions (still to this day) an Ottawa based theatre company who were putting on “Some Like it Hot!!!”. Stephen still shoots for the company samples are included on this page.


Theatre, Film & Fashion
Stephen later became involved with Mirvish Productions in Toronto and was contracted to shoot Publicity and Production photography for Miss Saigon and Les Miserables. His photo shoot with MaAnne Dionisio was featured in several magazines including Mcleans, Canadian's, Front cover of Toronto Where and many other publications. He has also worked on several films including “What About Dad?” a CFC Production (Canadian Film Centre). Shooting continuity stills as well as production photo's for film was always educational, lending a new obsticle each time with every film worked on. Stephen also worked as a 3rd AD, set builder, grip and P.A. In addition to film and theatre, Stephen worked as a fashion photographer. Shooting for print and portfolio, many styles, and ideas surfaced as he created a unique signature style that was very much his own. The Photographer in Stephen has never left, he's constantly shooting for private contracts and for Canadian Spotlight Productions not to mention the many shoots for models, musicians, independent artists, theatre companies... the list goes on. You could say he has a hard time shaking what makes him most at home, creating, making, inspiring... photographic, cinemagraphic, flashamagraphic... anything where he can be creative.

The Many Faces and Hats
Things changed over the years and Stephen found himself changing the role slightly as he traded in the camera for awhile to work as a corporate trainer for Bell Nexxia. There he made orientation movies, interactive Flash training modules for the agents, virtual software used for trouble shooting and developing courses taught to the agents. Inevitably working for Bell pushed him back into the direction of photography and film production thus the birth of Canadian Spotlight Productions. He still teaches, now it’s bartending 3 nights a week for Algonquin Careers Academy in addition to preparing a course to be taught on Video Broadcast / Web TV Production in the Spring of 2004. And just when you think that is that you find out as well that he has been crewing and involved with RE/MAX (High Time Balloons) and previously Sundance Balloons and that he recently became a talent scout for Lawxy International Models & Talent Inc.