The first photos Jeff Smith took in Washington on Wednesday showed President Trump's supporters outside the Capitol in prayer. Although he rarely takes selfies, he then snapped one and posted it on Facebook, wondering what the day would bring.
"I mean you really don't have a clue how it's gonna go down," said Smith.
What would soon happen was a far cry from those peaceful moments of reflection.
After the rally supporting Trump's push to overturn the election, Smith reached the Capitol complex, and encountered chaos.
"When I found out protesters had broken through the barricades and actually got in, right then and there my photography instincts kicked," he recounted.
He says he could not believe what he was seeing.
"As soon as I walked up on the Capitol I was like, 'Are you people out of your blanking minds?'" he said.
Smith has covered many marches and protests. He also takes photos of New York's music scene. He says his approach is always the same.
"I start wide. I get the stage wide or in this case Capitol wide, but people are at all three entrances. I captured the wide-angle shots and then I basically started getting closer and closer and then once I got that, and since you rarely have the opportunity to go up the stairs where the doors are at, there were people there so I decided to go ahead -- you better go for this and get all you can while you can get it. I went ahead and got as close as I could," he said, describing how he got right up to an entrance to the building.
Smith takes less costly equipment to events he thinks might get dicey, but he brought his more expensive gear to Washington this time. And despite the scene, he was not scared and won't be deterred from covering future protests.
Smith initially hoped to get his photographs into a newspaper.
But after documenting the unthinkingable, people storming and ransacking the Capitol, he thinks it’s possible some of these images may end up in the history books.
