Objects of Affection

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Look around your home. Try to pick just one item you couldn’t—actually, you wouldn’t—do without. Maybe it’s a piece of family jewelry passed from one generation to the next and now to you. Or maybe it’s that rocking chair in the corner where you rocked your children to sleep. Maybe it’s just that piece on the wall you call art. For you, the object’s meaning isn’t just surface deep. Its significance may escape others—but you know better.

BECKY SMITH

Becky Smith seeks intimate minimalism. In travels, she seeks the close-up, human-to-human connection. The scene through her camera’s viewfinder more often than not is a macro point of view. The art hanging from the walls of her north Ketchum home reveals the true minimalist inside.

In Smith’s worldwide travels, her camera leads the way. An occasional photographer for the Stanford University Travel Study Program, last fall Smith and her husband Pete traveled north to south down the western side of Africa. Smith’s bags are presently packed for Peru, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

Smith’s love for photography started young with a gift from her father. “He stuck a Brownie in my hand when I was a little girl.” Now she’s never without a camera, but doesn’t like to consider herself a professional photographer. “A true photographer is seen through the lens,” she says.

Her Object

Think minimalist, simple. Brilliant reds and yellows: think Chinese and Tibetan. Josef Albers painted the small, square, modern painting that enjoys a place of distinction on Smith’s wall. “I have lived with this piece for a long time. I have always wanted it around me,” she says. “It changes every time I look at it.”

The Smiths’ art collection has a simplistic aspect that influences her photography. It’s a kind of minimalist art that leads her into the subject, allowing her a closer look. “Looking at this type of art for 40 years has trained the way I look through the camera.”

Her eye wanders to another of their paintings. The reductive view takes in just the side of a highway and a guardrail. The perspective appeals to her sense of intimate composition. “My art collection has trained my eye to take pictures.”