Schmid studied visual communication at Berlin University of arts

from 1976 to 1981. He started of a freelance critic and a publisher.

He became famous because of rawness of his photography and it
had a big message. His work is known internationally and shown at
many galleries. He published for a company called Fotokritik and he
argued articulately against prevailing notion of ‘art of photography’
and in favour of a broad critique of photography as a form of cultural
practise