[12] In 1996, he earned a Master of Arts degree, the product of a full teaching fellowship provided by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

[18][19] Several expeditions to the Cold War inspired guerrilla wars in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, moonlighting as a journalist for the University Daily Kansan newspaper[20] and selling combat photography he made on the side as a freelance photographer to the Associated Press, United Press International, and other agencies.

[21] "Molten Memoirs" In September 1997, Smith gained access to the death zone of Salem, Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean,[22][23] becoming one of the 200 volcano holdouts there who refused to leave until a near-fatal close call eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano on September 22, 1997 finally forced them to flee.

[24] In February 1999 Smith released his first street photography book, a journal (Molten Memoirs: Essays, Rumors Field Notes and Photographs from the Edge of Fury) about his experience.

His mother committed suicide, a victim of uncontrollable depression, when he was in the fifth grade, resulting in his development as a self-reliant and independent spirit unencumbered by self-doubt.

He was knocked unconscious in secondary lightning strikes twice as a teenager, once when he was 15 and again at 19, resulting in later incorporation of the fury of nature into his global street photography method.

[32] In 1978, while hitchhiking across the United States, Smith picked up a newspaper one morning at a truck stop outside Scottsbluff, Nebraska and was inspired by an article he read promising cheaper international airfares under the new Airline Deregulation Act.