Gareth Smit

Gareth Smit is a Director of Photography (DP, DOP) Cinematographer based in New York City (NYC, NY) and works across documentary, commercial and narrative projects. He has documented issues relating to migration, race and identity with a particular interest in the role of land and history in shaping the present. In 2014 he documented the community and family of Eric Garner after he was killed by a NYPD police officer, resulting in the photo essay and short film In Tompkinsville. He continued working on Staten Island for two more years culminating in North Shore (Alice Austen House Museum, 2016). In 2018 he received a grant from the Magnum Foundation to collaborate with Tohono O'odham poet Dr. Ofelia Zepeda and historian Martín Zícari for The Place Where Clouds Are Formed (Tucson Museum of Art, 2020). In 2015 his interests began to shift toward cinematography. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Yorker. He camera operated on Crime + Punishment, Stephen Maing's 2018 documentary that received a Jury's Award at Sundance. Gareth Smit was born in 1990 in Heidelberg, South Africa. He studied Philosophy and History at the University of Cape Town. In 2014 he moved to New York to attend the International Center of Photography. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.