Ron Smid is a Canadian landscape photographer living outside Powell River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. The child of refugees from Czechoslovakia, Ron was the first member of his family to be born in Canada. He grew up on the edge of the Canadian Shield in the small town of Orillia, Ontario – the birthplace of Gordon Lightfoot and the painter Franklin Carmichael, a founding member of the Group of Seven. His earliest memories include swimming in Lake Couchiching and later fishing and boating among the Thirty Thousand Islands of Georgian Bay.

Inspired by the works of early American landscape photographers and the Canadian Group of Seven painters, Ron Smid set out in his early twenties to forge his own style in the wilds of Canada. In his early twenties, he made his first solo canoe expedition into the rugged backcountry of Northern Ontario. In 1999, at the age of 26, he embarked on a three-month trip across Western Canada traveling as far north as Inuvik Northwest Territories. The journey became a catalyst for his life and his art. For the past 30 years, he has continued to travel the Canadian countryside by both van and canoe, capturing the light and texture of the Canadian landscape in traditional analog photography. He strives to capture singular moments in time that reflect the quintessential essence of the land.

A photographic purist, Smid remains dedicated to the traditional art of landscape photography using film and large-format wood field cameras without the use of digital post-production in any of his work. He is the last Canadian artist to work with the now-discontinued Cibachrome analog color process whose unparalleled color, depth, and three-dimensional realism represent the pinnacle of the photographic color medium. His limited-edition color works are created by master darkroom printer Michael Wilder, who has made prints for many well-known photographers, including printing some of the rare color works of Ansel Adams.

Ron Smid gained international exposure through his studio the Canada Gallery located in Whistler, British Columbia’s Upper Village between 2011– 2015. Today his work is displayed in both private and corporate art collections in nearly twenty countries throughout the world.