Sydelle Willow Smith | Huck
Huck
Photography

Sydelle Willow Smith

Answers On A Postcard — Next up in our Answers On A Postcard series, a visual q&a where photographers answer questions with their images, is South African documentary photographer Sydelle Willow Smith.

To celebrate Huck 46: The Documentary Photography Special II, our annual celebration of visual storytelling, we are having a Huck website takeover – Shoot Your World – dedicated to the personal stories behind the photographs we love.

In this regular series, Answers On A Postcard, we ask photographers to get existential and respond to a visual q&a with their images. Sydelle Willow Smith’s own search for identity guides her lens. The South African photographer was born in Johannesburg and is now based in Cape Town, while working on a Masters degree in African Studies through Oxford University. Sydelle brings her training in Social Anthropology to her photography and explores the multiple layers of identity that we construct around ourselves.

Answers On A Postcard #6

Who are you?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-1

Sydelle Willow Smith.

What does home feel like?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-2

Wherever I have made it.

What does faith look like?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-3

Ephemeral beauty.

What’s your greatest fear?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-4

The habit of setting impossible expectations for myself.

What keeps you up at night?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-5

Waking from wild dreams in the darkest hours of the night.

What helps you sleep?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-6

Quiet neighbours.

What’s the meaning of life?

Sydelle-Willow-Smith-Huck-7

The life-long quest for a lasting sense of inner calm.

Find out more about Sydelle Willow Smith.


You might like

Two men talking indoors near large printed photos on a wall; one in a camo jacket, the other in a black hoodie and cap.

What went down at Huck’s 20th birthday party

84 issues and counting — We took over east London’s Jaguar Shoes with friends old and new to celebrate two decades and our new issue, with Tony Bontana taking the decks for a special set.

  • Huck 84: It Starts With Us
  • Ella Glossop

Photos of friends, lovers and afters in Berlin’s party scene

Dreams and How to Keep Them – Vincent Wechselberger’s new monograph documents a decade of hedonism in the German capital, and the people he met along the way.

  • Music
  • Hannah Mildner

Inside the Los Angeles scene kid revival

The Rawring ’20s — For the cover of Huck 84, photographer Alexis Gross and writer Anna Zanes meet the latest faces of scene, who are finding freedom to express themselves through its technicolour, unafraid aesthetic.

  • Huck 84: It Starts With Us
  • Anna Zanes
© Alexis Gross

Introducing our new issue of Huck Magazine: It Starts With Us

Huck 84 — For our second 20th anniversary issue, we spotlight 20 people and groups providing the world with a hopeful future.

  • Huck 84: It Starts With Us
  • Huck
© Ludovic Helme

The sharp rise of video game photography

Point, shoot — As the entertainment medium’s fidelity levels increase and developers build more powerful tools, a growing community of gamers are pushing the boundaries of image making in virtual worlds. Vicky Jessop meets people at the forefront of the emerging artform.

  • Culture
  • Vicky Jessop
© Alan Lodge

Joyous photos from the heart of the UK’s radical free festival movement

Common Grounds — The photographer has been capturing British counterculture for the past half century. A new exhibition looks at his archive sitting at the intersection of music, community and grassroots protest.

  • Culture
  • Miss Rosen
You've read articles this month Thanks for reading

Join Club Huck — it's free!

Valued Huck reader, thank you for engaging with our journalism and taking an interest in our dispatches from the sharp edge of culture, sport, music and rebellion.

We want to offer you the chance to join Club Huck [it's free!] where you will receive exclusive newsletters, including personal takes on the state of pop culture and media from columnist Emma Garland, culture recommendations, interviews and dispatches straight to your inbox.

You'll also get priority access to Huck events, merch discounts, and more fun surprises.

Already part of the club? Enter your email above and we'll get you logged in.