Celebrating our HHS Photographer of 32 Years: Chris Smith

Celebrating our HHS Photographer of 32 Years: Chris Smith


After 32 years at HHS, and 38 years within the federal authorities, our photographer Chris Smith is retiring. I can converse for our complete HHS group after I say we’re going to overlook seeing him round along with his digital camera, and we’ll miss his presence.

He’s a widely known title round right here, identified all through our constructing and throughout the federal authorities.

Pictured right here: Chris Smith and his digital camera.

In three a long time, he’s captured historical past and helped inform our story to the nation. He did extra than simply create extraordinary pictures; he helped us doc who we’re as folks, and who we’re as a Division.

As a result of it isn’t simply the work we do, it is the people who do the work. And because of his eager eye, now we have an unparalleled report of what the individuals who’ve been a part of HHS have completed for America during the last 32 years.

Chris began at HHS in September 1990 and has served below six administrations and photographed 9 HHS Secretaries. Earlier than that, he bought his introduction to the federal authorities on the U.S. Division of the Treasury the place he labored below one other trailblazer and early Black photographer within the federal authorities.

Chris’s father and father-in-law had been each Tuskegee Airmen and his father turned a fireman in D.C., Chris’s hometown. Chris attended Duke Ellington College of the Arts and found his love of pictures by means of a summer time youth program and by enjoying round in his father’s darkish room.

Pictured here: Chris Smith’s father, Theodore Paul Smith, in uniform as a Tuskegee Airman.

Pictured right here: Chris Smith’s father, Theodore Paul Smith, in uniform as a Tuskegee Airman.

His work is featured within the Smithsonian—this image he took of buttons and lapel pins in assist of our work to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Pictured right here: {Photograph} of AIDS button show, now featured within the Smithsonian Museum system.

Chris has additionally taken numerous headshots, together with my very own, and 4 of his Secretary portraits at present grasp within the Nice Corridor the place they’ll keep, enshrined in historical past.

That’s why I needed to take a second and write  somewhat about Chris, his life, and his work – it’s part of historical past. Historical past flows by means of us, and we grow to be it. It’s one thing price celebrating, and one thing price preserving for future generations.

Chris, thanks for preserving our historical past and congratulations on leaving your mark on the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies. 

We want you a really comfortable retirement.

Pictured right here: Secretary Becerra and Chris Smith posing on the 2022 workers vacation occasion.

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