Jackson Free Press

It all began with a single tulip. Paul Smith, a Clinton native who now makes his home in Brandon and is close to retiring from UPS, decided he wanted to try something different, something he had never done before. He liked photography. His wife asked him to take a photograph of a yellow tulip she admired at Jackson's well-manicured Highland Village.

Now Smith has published his first photography book, "The Color of Mississippi" (Nautilus Publishing, 2012, $38), and is working on a second, "The Color of the South." Smith also gives workshops around the state, including one on July 24 for History is Lunch, a series sponsored by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Smith's workshops don't really focus on technical skills. Rather, he talks about seeing, exploring ways to capture inner vision, to slow down and embrace the creativity that most people possess, but don't always tap into. He wants his workshop attendees to find what they love, do what they love and ultimately find inner peace.

"It's not about photography really, it's about capturing your vision." Smith says. "It's about stepping out, taking a 
chance and doing what you always wanted to do."

That essentially is what Smith is doing with his foray into professional photography. "I was non-taught," Smith says, recalling the photo of the tulip. "All I ever wanted was one good picture. I started with low expectations. ... I really went on blind faith, just shooting what I like."

As he developed his photographic style, Smith started adding in text to record his thoughts and views at the moment he takes his photos.

"I write whatever I see with my eyes and my imagination, using lots of adjectives," he says. In his book, he describes that original yellow tulip with one tiny red tear on its petal: "Coming to life after the cold, gray winter, fragile petals nod softly in the cool gentle breeze."

After discovering photography, Smith travelled the state, going wherever anyone asked him to go, to capture the beauty of Mississippi. "I wanted to portray the state in a different light," he says. "I didn't want to just capture shotgun houses and indigent people. I wanted to capture the color. Color is beautiful." Ultimately, he pieced together a sample book and showed it to several independent bookstores. Oxford's Neil White decided he wanted to publish it.

"Books are a humbling experience," Smith says. "At a signing there might be one person or 100. Either way I am humbled."

The resulting tome, "The Color of Mississippi," is a sketchpad-sized coffee-table book, which opens from the top instead of the side. The cover features a predominantly tomato-red scene of a sunset seen through a bridge. Smith has several additional books planned, including "The Color of the South," which will include photographs from Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and will be a little smaller in dimension.

When the series is complete, Smith says the stack will visually create a color wheel for a library or coffee table.

Paul Smith's "History Is Lunch" workshop is July 24, from noon until 1 p.m. at the William Winter Building (200 North St., 601-576-6850). It is free.

To see more of Paul Smith's work, visit lensframe.com or find Paul R. Smith Photography on Facebook. "The Color of Mississippi" is available at Lemuria Books (4465 Interstate 55 N., Suite 202, 601-366-7619).