In China's Southwest, less visited in many ways than Yunnan's other destinations, the region between Kunming and the border crossing into Vietnam is a rewarding area to explore.

Here you will find descendants of a Mongolian army, the old Ming city of Jianshui, the rice terraces of Yangyung and markets and villages peopled by colorful ethnic minorities.

Mason Philip Smith has had one-man exhibitions at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine; at the University of Southern Maine, Portland, Maine; Westbrook College, Portland, Maine; in Newton and Greenfield, Massachusetts, in Archangel, Russia and in Nova Scotia. In addition, he has exhibited extensively in group exhibitions throughout the Northeast, including at the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, and Colby College.

A portfolio of his landscape photographs of Maine is included in the Traveling Exhibition Service of the University of Maine, Orono, Maine. His documentary photographs of venacular Maine buildings are included in the collection of the Maine Historical Preservation Commission, Augusta, Maine.

A collection of his large format photographs of early Maine colonial gravestone carvings has been exhibited throughout Maine and is currently part of the collection of the Maine Historical Society.

In recent years he has photographed extensively in Asia.