“… We photgraphed the fishing first, because we knew we needed fishing pictures and it was a safe subject—you didn’t need to know the individuals involved intimately. But we began to know the people better and we ate their food. It was such an exciting time, and because I was not working for a magazine, I stayed as long as I wanted to. I didn’t know where we were going to get money from, because we had none. However, we were limping along. It was very difficult. At times we were six thousand miles from home with only three dollars, wondering where the hell we were going to get money to go on. But the longer we stayed, the more we became neighbours and friends instead of journalists. This is the way to make your finest photographs.”
- W. Eugene Smith in Vicky Goldberg 1981, Photography in Print, p.441.
“How did the famous picture of the mother washing her daugter come about?”
“By that process of getting to know the individuals. We looked after the child at times when the parents were on protests. They lived about a ten-minute walk from our house. Every time we went by the house, we would see that someone was always caring for her. I would see the wonderful love that the mother gave. She was always cheerful, and the more I watched, the more it seemed to me that it was a summation of the most beautiful aspects of courage that people were showing in Minamata in fighting the company and the government. Now this is called romanticism. But it was the courage that I was interested in. Courage is romantic, too. I wanted somehow to symbolize the best, the strongest, element of Minamata.
One day, I said to Aileen, my wife, “Let’s try to make that photograph.” I imagined a picture in which a child was being held by the mother and the love was coming through. I went to the house, tried very clumsily to explain to the mother that I wanted to show a picture in which Tomoko was naked so we could see what had happened to her body. I wanted to show her caring for the child. And she said: ‘Yes, I’m just about to give Tomoko her bath. Maybe that will help you.’ She first held the child on the outside of the bath and washed her as the Japanese do; then she put her into the bath. And I could see the picture building into what I was trying to say. I found it emotionally moving, and I found it very difficult to photograph through my tears. However, I made that photograph. It’s as romantic as could be.”
- W. Eugene Smith in Vicky Goldberg 1981, Photography in Print, p.441.
This may be the hardest lesson to learn in the disaster saturated times we live in now: spend time on getting to know the people involved. It takes a certain courage to stay in a situation longer. Be paid less as a photojournalist because your working less, but make good work that gets closer to the truth, and further from sensationalism. In these desperate beginnings it seems luxurious to be concerned about this, the feeling is that any work is good work. But actually the lessons taught by Eugene Smith is more important now that ever for me.
Posted 3 years ago
