Today we’d like to introduce you to Mackenzie Smith.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I currently am a freelance photographer/videographer with a background in sports, music, commercial brand work, and portraiture. Growing up, I always had a creative knack and would make fun travel videos to post on YouTube, was always taking pictures of everything, and finding ways to document my life. I was always into art and music growing up too, which is something I’m still finding new ways to love. I’m passionate about personal expression and everything that goes into creating art- physical art, photography, music, graphic design, story telling, you name it.
I’d lived in Dallas my whole life up until when I decided to go to college in Melbourne, Florida to pursue a degree while also playing Division II women’s lacrosse. I went to college in 2021 with the intention of getting my degree in the STEM field. Math and science always came naturally to me, so it felt like the right career move, along with the comfort of knowing that being a women in STEM would lead to a financially sound career path. After about 2 years of feeling unsure about it and thinking that I wanted to do something else with my career, I took the chance and changed my major to Multiplatform Journalism. I learned a lot about written journalism and storytelling, audio design, videography, photography, and graphic design. I then graduated in May 2025 with my undergrad degree, and shortly after got an opportunity to go to Fayetteville, Arkansas to intern with a company called Hogs+, which is essentially the “Netflix” of all things Razorback sports. I interned throughout last summer doing photography and videography, and once the fall came around, I began working with football, soccer, volleyball, and basketball. Then this past spring, I worked more with basketball, indoor and outdoor track and field, softball, and baseball. I also began shooting concerts and the local music scene in Fayetteville starting in November 2025, and now I’ve shot over 15 concerts/house shows in the last 7 months. I travel back and forth between Arkansas and Dallas a lot because my family still lives there, and I go back a lot for concerts or to experience all that Dallas has to offer. There’s a lot of people from DFW that now live in the Fayetteville area, so in a lot of ways, living here for the last year has felt home-y.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not. When I switched majors/career paths, I knew I would be “choosing the harder route,” because a lot of the creative industry (both sports/music/media in general) require you to market/make a name for yourself. It involves a lot of unpaid work, lots of late nights spent shooting, editing, or driving to and from shoots. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over all the times I’ve been up late working hard to get content turned around fast, or having to get up really early for a shoot after getting home really late from something else the night before. It’s also incredibly hard to be self-taught in this industry because you constantly have imposter syndrome and it feels like there’s a million things to learn. Thankfully, there are a lot of resources out there now with YouTube and social media, but starting from scratch and figuring it out is still hard nonetheless. It’s taught me a lot of resilience and determination (which I already picked up from being a college student-athlete).
Freelancing and doing random gigs/jobs here and there is also scary because there’s uncertainty around not knowing when and where your next paycheck is going to come from, but it’s one of those things I’ve learned that ebbs and flows month to month. At the end of the day, I know that being a hard worker, being a good person, and doing what’s right will help get me to where I want to be in the future.
What I do love though is that working in the creative industry is equally as rewarding as it is daunting because the result and satisfaction from the clients afterwards or the personal satisfaction always makes it feel worth it at the end. I’m still so new and learning every day, but it’s slowly but surely starting to pay off for me now that it’s been a full year since I graduated and started my career.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I wear a lot of hats as a freelance photographer/videographer/creative. I specialize in music and sports photography, and would consider myself more of a documentary/storyteller-type photographer rather than a still/posed/action photographer (not that I can’t do that, I just think my style revolves more around “the story”). With a background in storytelling through my multimedia journalism degree, my passion revolves around all the moments that make up a moment. I focus on the details and capturing movement, emotion, and atmosphere through immersive, moment-driven imagery. I want my images to make people FEEL things.
I’m most proud of how my creative style has grown over the past year. It’s taken a lot of fine tuning, but I’ve felt more and more as time goes on that my work visually represents how I feel as a person and what I think is important. Anyone can take a photo, but not everyone has the creative eye to execute a vision that makes the audience connect with what they’re looking at. Having that perspective sets me apart from others because to me, it’s so much more than a photograph of a moment frozen in time, but how that moment makes you feel, reliving that moment through the image/video.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I hate having my photo taken. It seems ironic that the person holding the camera is the one person who hates having their own photo taken, but it’s true! I feel so awkward when I’m in front of the camera, so I’d much rather be behind it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mackenziesmithmpj.myportfolio.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mackenziesmithmedia/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackenziegsmith/
