Life of W. Eugene Smith

1194 Words3 Pages

William Eugene Smith was an American photographer who produced photographic projects that changed how photographs were portrayed. Rather than a photo being a photo, he told stories through his photographs, through a practice called photojournalism. His photographic projects depicted people in their everyday lives, but in different situations. The photographs he took did not hide anything that he saw from the audience no matter how graphic the scenery may appear to be. His photography methods differed from traditional methods, in that traditional photographs/photographic projects were a distortion of reality, so that it is more pleasing to the audience. Smith on the other showed what was actually going on in the world or wherever he was shooting photos. His photos basically showed his audience what is happening in various parts of the world and showing people as they are living their normal lives, no matter how depressing or graphic their true lives might be. Smith changed photography, and in my opinion, opened the new world of photojournalism by telling stories with his photographs.

Born to Nettie Lee Smith and Bill Smith on December 18, 1918 in Wichita, Kansas was William Eugene Smith, who would later revolutionize photography. His mother Nettie was into photography, taking photos of her family, especially her two sons as they grew up, photographing events of their lives (Hughes 2). Photography had been a part of Smith’s life since he was young. At first it started out always being photographed by his mother, and then turned into taking photographs along with his friend Pete, as he got older. They often practiced developing photos in Nettie’s kitchen, and he later began to create albums with his photographs. His photographs diff...

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...e Smith died of a stroke October 1978, a year after moving to Arizona to teach at the University of Arizona. His worked however continued to live on through his contributions to the change in photojournalism. In 1980, the W. Eugene Smith fund was founded to promote humanistic photography to carry on his legacy (Magnum Photos). This fund showed a change in the photography world due to W. Eugene Smith, and his nontraditional methods in photography.

Works Cited

1- PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/w-eugene-smith/about-w-eugene-smith/707/

2- Magnum: http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.Biography_VPage&AID=2K7O3R13EDK0

1- W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance : The Life and Work of an American Photographer by Jim Hughes

2- Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project by Alan Trachtenberg, edited by Sam Stephenson

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