W. Eugene Smith
[Photographer, b. 1918, Wichita, Kansas, d. 1978, Tucson, Arizona.]
I think that basically all of my photographs are failures... I’m not saying that as a self negation or anything like that, I just don’t judge it upon it upon how “good” it was, but rather upon how I’d fail upon what I was trying to say.
The care I give the prints and the agony I go through making them makes it a most unpleasant—but necessary—task.
If I can get them to think, get them to feel, get them to see, then I’ve done about all that I can as a teacher.
Most photographers seem to operate with a pane of glass between themselves and their subjects. They just can’t get inside and know the subject.
My camera, my intentions stopped no man from falling. Nor did they aid him after he had fallen. It could be said that photographs be damned for they bind no wounds. Yet, I reasoned, if my photographs could cause compassionate horror within the viewer, they might also prod the conscience of that viewer into taking action.
1942: Freelanced, choosing assignments; later felt freedom misused because of creative immaturity; that photographs made had “great depth of field, very little depth of feeling.” In later repudiation of this period of work, acknowledged that subsequent photography was a logical development of the past and not representative of a drastic shift in values.
I frequently have sought out those who are in the least position to speak for themselves. By accident of birth, by accident of place—whoever, whatever, wherever—I am of their family. I can comment for them, if I believe in their cause, with a voice they do not possess.
