Location, Location, Location Jane Feldman finds that Rodney Smith is a hard man to please.

I was working as a freelance producer, doing all the casting and location scouting for the fashion brand Ellen Tracy. Their incredible art director Karen Silveira fought to bring Rodney Smith in. She was absolutely adamant that he was the only person she wanted to shoot with.

I come from fashion and advertising, so the idea of a fine art photographer shooting fashion took a little push. I’ve worked for a lot of photographers over the years. That was my education. But I fell in love with Rodney’s work immediately. And vice versa. If he liked you, he grabbed you, and never let you go.

Rodney was very difficult when it came to locations.

My preliminary scouting wasn’t always helpful because he needed to see it for himself. Most other photographers only want to see Polaroids and never visit in person prior to the shoot. With Rodney, it was very, very different.

I would take him into some castle with expansive gardens, the kind of place where any other photographer would be happy for a week. But not Rodney. He’d see ONE shot, and that was it.

So I had to have a lot lined up for him to see. I was dragging him from place to place and he loved it. He loved to explore. We’d drive around and that was a little adventure. We would just pull up at each location and he’d say, “yeah, this is gonna work,” or “I don’t need to see more.” I’d say, “Rodney, you can’t see it from the car window.”

But he would just know. With Rodney it was about a feeling. He had an odd combination of precision and spontaneity—simultaneously. He saw the potential in advance, but needed to discover the picture in the moment.

I remember we scouted the Ice House Hill Farm in Richmond, Massachusetts. He needed to get permission from two brothers—the two farmers who owned the farm. But they were not speaking to each other. They were at a critical point in negotiations over which one of them was going to own the land and buy the other one out. Rodney did not care that he was walking into Family Feud.

When he decided he wanted to shoot at the Ice House, that was it. He was like a pit bull.

Rodney delivered a masterclass in negotiation. He loved people and he wanted to know their stories. There was no judgment. He always treated people with respect. He asked each of them separately to tell him about the land and about the Ice House. Did they know what years the Ice House actually had ice in it? Were horses and carts used to carry the ice out? How many generations ago?

He didn’t get them talking to each other, that would’ve been too much, but he did get them laughing. Rodney’s curiosity was his way of creating authentic connection. He loved the landscape—their land—and he wanted to help them tell their story. The two farmers ultimately agreed to let him shoot there.

I don’t use the word genius too often, but I use that with Rodney.