About Parrish Smith

Welcome to the official website of Parrish Smith!

With over two decades of experience as a director of photography and director, Parrish takes pleasure in crafting purposeful compositions in order to help translate and motivate the story.  

An award winning Cinematographer and Director, Parrish has been the force behind numerous commercials, short and feature-length films, music videos, industrials, journalism news, and documentaries.  Parrish has been one of the most sought after cinematographers in the world, working for clients such as CBS, UPN, FOX, BET “BET’s Rap City”, and “Rap City Japan”, Black Starz, Nickelodeon, Converse, Al Roker Productions, MTV etc.  In fact, many of his projects have appeared in numerous film festivals... Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, American Black Film Festival (ABFF), Hollywood Black, Fespaco, Pan-African, UrbanWorld, and San-Francisco Black just to name a few... and on networks such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, TUBI,  Showtime, NBC, BET, etc.  A few of his film credits as Director and D.P. are... “Nelly’s Bodega” (Cannes, Sundance, Toronto), “Unjust Cause” (Showtime winner, UrbanWorld, Fespaco etc.), “Destiny” (UrbanWorld, Hollywood Black), “The Last Adam”  (ABFF, Hollywood Black),  “Programas” (UrbanWorld, London’s BFM, IBFF), "The Scroll" (Netflix ABFF, San Antonio Black Film Festival, Amazon, TUBI), "The Mecca of Comedy" (Apple TV, Amazon Prime, TUBI, ABFF, San Antonio Black Film Festival / Winner)

In addition to Parrish Smith's film career, he has also worked as a photojournalist for CBS NEWS, Fox 5 NY & DC, BET NEWS, and UPN9 NEWS in NYC.  He's worked through “Katrina”, “911”, "The Puffy Trial", “George Floyd Protests", "January 6 US Capitol Riot", "Tyre Nichols Protest in Memphis" and many other stories.

In a recent interview, Parrish described his passion for creating by saying, “Being a visual communicator is what I am. I love the whole process… lighting, framing, collaboration, blocking, working with talent, etc. In order to be great, you must know every facet of the art form".