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Craig Semetko (born Craig Joseph William Semetko, July 9, 1961) is an American street photographer and speaker based in Los Angeles.[1][2] He is known for the strong sense of humor[1] and irony that appears in his candid and spontaneous photos of everyday life. He teaches workshops around the world and his photography has been exhibited in the United States, Europe, and Asia.[3]
His series titled Unposed has been published in two books.[1][4]
Semetko was born near Detroit, Michigan and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Speech from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He holds a master's degree in consciousness studies from the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles. At 16 he was a page in the United States House of Representatives. For much of his adult life Semetko was a professional comedic actor and writer,[4] and he still performs occasionally. In 2000, he had a corporate performing job[4] that took him to England, Ireland, Japan and China. He purchased his first camera for the trip[4] and after seeing a photo he took outside Shanghai of two women in a dugout canoe it occurred to him that he could use photography as a different medium to tell stories. He has stated he views his photography as an extension of his acting and writing.[3][5]
Semetko was inspired by the work of Magnum Photos photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson[4] and Elliott Erwitt, saying, "In a perfect world, I would try to get the emotion from an Erwitt image and the composition of a Cartier-Bresson photograph."[6]
Semetko's first book, Unposed, was published by teNeues in 2010 and contained photographs taken from 2000 to 2010. Elliott Erwitt wrote the foreword for the book, excerpted below:
Good photographs are tough enough to shoot. Really funny ones are even harder. Good and funny photographs observed in nature not arranged or manipulated but simply observed in real time with amazing consistency, constitute a minor miracle now presented in Mr. Semetko's book...In my book he is the essential photographer. That is, the one who sees what others could not have seen.
In 2014 Semetko was selected as one of ten photographers to be a part of Leica's 10×10 exhibition.[7] This inaugural show celebrated Leica's 100 year anniversary at their new headquarters and museum in Wetzlar, Germany. Leica paired each photographer with their "artistic father," coupling Semetko with Erwitt.[3][7] In an article that year celebrating the history of Leica cameras, Esquire magazine called Semetko "a noble torchbearer" to the long legacy of professional photographers using Leicas, beginning with Cartier-Bresson.[8]
