Since 2000, Schmidt has photographed over 500 contemporary fine artists, in their studios and with their work. His first book Artists, published in 2007, Steidl, included 130 of the artist portraits, and coincided with a gallery show of this work at Deitch Projects.

His second book on the subject will be published in the fall of 2014. His work has been anthologized and collected and the entire series of artist pictures is in the collection of Martin Marguiles.

Last year, Schmidt had a show of this work at MOCA in Los Angeles. Schmidt regularly shoots for magazines and advertisers including The New York Times Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Vogue, IBM, and Microsoft. For the past 3 years Schmidt has also been directing short films. He has directed several short editorial films on artists and architects and is currently working on a feature length documentary on the artist Raymond Petibon.