Anthony has presented hundreds of lectures all around the world.
He is a highly sought-after presenter on a range of subjects, drawing on his extensive experience in Art, Natural History, and Photography.
Lecturing At Sea
Anthony’s presenting career began in 2009 when he worked as a television presenter for a documentary series about the life and travels of Charles Darwin. This series involved an eight-month adventure, resailing the Voyage of HMS Beagle around the world on board a beautiful, three masted tallship, during which Anthony featured as one of the regular presenters. Anthony has been presenting and lecturing ever since.
Since 2014 he has presented hundreds of lectures for luxury cruise lines including Silversea, Seabourn, Ponant and Oceania.
Testimonials
‘Anthony is one of the most engaging lecturers we have had the pleasure to spend time with. As well as being a highly talented bronze sculptor, Anthony has the ability to make his lectures fun, insightful and personal as well as imparting a great deal of knowledge. I highly recommend him as both a presenter and a dinner companion!’
Caroline & Michael Foulger, Seabourn Ovation Guests
‘Anthony is by far the most accomplished and enjoyable lecturer that we have encountered over the years. His lectures on bronze sculpting, photography and the natural sciences were outstanding. He clearly has a passion for and extensive knowledge of a broad range of disciplines and his presentations are clear and concise. He is a true Renaissance man and we would happily select a cruise knowing that we could sail with him again.’
Linda Ujihara, Silversea Cruise Guest
‘Anthony is an excellent speaker, in addition to being an excellent photographer and people person, and his knowledge and enthusiasm for his subjects – photography, wildlife, Antarctica, sculpture and travel – came through loud and clear to all of us. His presence on a future cruise would be a very strong incentive for us to sign up and go along.’
Patricia L. Sullivan, Abercrombie & Kent Guests, Antarctic voyage
Lecture List
A list of Anthony’s extensive collection of lectures can be found on his dedicated lecturing website: click here.
Lecture Resources & Links
Below is a list of links to useful websites and resources separated by topic, relating to the materials covered in Anthony’s lectures.
-- Sculpting Lectures --
- Anthony Smith’s bronze sculpture website, including an illustrated description of the creative process.
- Anthony Smith’s 360 degree turntable videos of bronze wildlife sculptures with a variety of patinas.
- A very good video from the Victoria & Albert Museum showing the stages of the lost wax casting method.
- Human figure sculptures by Anthony Smith.
- A very good video from the Victoria & Albert Museum showing the stages of the lost wax casting method.
- A great biography of the 19th century naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace.
-- Photography Lectures --
- A very nice webpage from the State Library of New South Wales with biographic information and a great selection of images from Frank Hurley.
- A large selection of photos by the polar photographer Herbert Ponting.
- The photography website of Anthony Smith.
- A decent webpage explaining some useful concepts in photographic composition.
- A useful site for showing you the time and direction of sunrise and sunset anywhere in the world.
- Biography and photos by the great photographer, Henri Certier-Bresson.
- Website for the very ‘bold’ contemporary street photographer, Bruce Gilden.
- Photographs and biographical information about the great American street photographer Vivian Maier.
- An interesting selection of early street photography images from the 1890s.
- A good, diverse selection of street photography images.
- An amusing article showing how images of Walt Disney have been altered to remove his cigarette.
- A great selection of early photos that were manipulated in artistic ways.
- Images that have blended contemporary scenes with those from WWII.
- A rather hilarious collection of terrible Photoshop errors.
- A free-to-use AI Art generator called Dall-E 2.
-- Coins Lectures --
- Part of an excellent series of videos from the US Mint, showing how they make coins.
- Some of the medals and coins designed and sculpted by Anthony Smith.
- A good book about the history and impact of coins.
-- Darwin Lectures --
- The full, final text for Charles Darwin’s Beagle Narrative – an excellent travel book by any standards.
- The full text for Captain Robert FitzRoy’s account of the Voyage of the Beagle.
- An excellent article debunking some of the many myths about Darwin.
- My favourite biography of Darwin that focuses on his early years and his time aboard HMS Beagle.
-- Whaling Lectures --
- An excellent YouTube video by Ben Schmidt showing the tracks of US whaling vessels from the 19th century.
- The wonderful South Georgia Museum at the old whaling station of Grytviken has a great website with some excellent information about an important whaling station of the 20th century.
- A great virtual tour of the Grytviken whaling station on the subantarctic island of South Georgia. It’s almost as good as being there!
- A fascinating documentary video showing pelagic whaling in Antarctica in the 1940s.
-- Falklands Lectures --
- The Falkland Islands Tourism Board has a very good website with lots of information about the Falklands.
- The Falkland Islands Government is also a great resource for reliable information about the islands.
- Falklands Conservation does excellent work on the islands and has lots of good information, including about the Johnny Rooks.
- A research paper on the ‘Distribution and Abundance of Breeding Striated Caracaras in the Falkland Islands‘ (2018).
- A research paper on how scavenging and ‘human subsidies’ play a role in Caracaras’ diet (2020).
-- Biodiversity Lectures --
- Protected Planet is a great website for tracking the level of protection for both marine and terrestrial areas around the world.
- The official Red List from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for all of the threatened species of the world.
- An interesting article by Forbes discussing Angelfish hybridisation.
-- Animal Navigation Lectures --
- An interesting article discussing evidence for possible magnetoreception in humans.
- An article showing the great extent of Southern Right Whale migration.
- An article that provides possible evidence for biomagnetic reception being the result of a symbiotic relationship with bacteria.
-- Underwater Sounds Lectures --
- Discovery of Sounds In The Sea is an excellent website all about underwater sounds, both natural and man-made.
- FishSounds catalogues the current research into the various sounds made by fish.
-- Animal Colouration Lectures --
- The British Ecological Society has an excellent series of articles about animal colours.
- An article from The latest Methods in Ecology and Evolution about how colours can be used for thermoregulation in animals.
- A great blog post from GrrlScientist about structural colouration in bird plumage.
- Fantastic footage from BBC Wildlife showing the amazing colour-changing abilities of cuttlefish when hunting.
- More great BBC footage of a male Giant Cuttlefish passing himself off as a female in order to mate.
