W Eugene Smith is widely accepted as a groundbreaker, a trailblazer and pusher of boundaries. Few were ‘doing’ photo essays, yet Smith had instant success with ‘Country Doctor‘ way back in 1948. At this time the essay was in its infancy, and as such the objective would have been straight forward. Dr. Ceriani was immersed in a linear lifestyle albeit important. He would repeat the safe process every day. Get up, go to work, do what Doctors do and go home (at some point). During the week/month, he would afford himself time for some relaxation/leisure. Therefore it would almost ‘happen’ that what Smith was shooting and producing (In the form of a book) would be linear. For instance, the first image implies he is going to work. You wouldn’t start an essay with him relaxing after mid morning surgery! The series was shot over a period of three weeks, and so there was editing to be done, and the literal time-line would not necessarily be followed, but images would be arranged to imply, if not one day, then a series of days. This would allow for ‘meander’ within the story.
In 1975 by the incredibly hard hitting ‘Minamata’, which was four years in the making . Both were groundbreakers as photo essays. Country Doctor being the first was in a very linear format (groundbreaking at the time). ‘Minamata’ was linear in timescale but not necessarily obvious pictorially. It was published as an expose of industrial criminality, the victims being an entire village/town which relied on the water and and the food chain within the river into which the Chisso company were dumping (and had been since the 1930’s) waste ‘heavy water’ (i.e water contaminated with Mercury). Although the owners of this giant company knew about the effects of what they were doing from very early on, because of commercial and personal greed, they chose to continue dumping. So much so that when Smith started to expose what was going on, he was, in 1972, attacked by hired thugs and left blind in one eye. This did little to deter him, moreover, it drove both him and his wife to ensure that the world got to know all about the human catastrophe that was still going on.
Minamata disease was first diagnosed in the mid 1950’s as a neurological disease caused by the prolonged intake of Mercury, leading to Mercury poisoning. The symptoms were graphically and unflinchingly recorded by Smith and shown to the world in 1975. The physical symptoms include distortion or contortion on the limbs, varying degrees of damage to the senses, clinical insanity, paralysis and ultimately death.
Smith was able to show these people in a dignified and even tender way. Possibly his most famous image is still readily viewable on the internet, though the family of the individual have long since asked that the image is no longer reproduced as a mark of respect to both the surviving family and those within the frame of the image. The image is entitled ‘Tomoko in her bath‘.
This photo essay was shot in the ‘hear and now’, and even though it was over a sustained period, the physiological content of the essay never really changed, the deformities were already at there most severe when Smith arrived. What was developing though was the political situation, and this was brought about by Smith’s investigative work. So although the narrative is quite static, the context certainly changes from the beginning to the end of the book.
Exercise
Learning log. How does Bryony Campbell’s The Dad Project compare with Country Doctor?
Using pictures to tell a story
Until I read David Hurn’s observations in “On Being a Photographer”, I always accepted that ‘narrative was narrative’ and it was just me confusing things! My picture narratives always told a sequential story (because in my mind that was the right way to do it!). I Couldn’t understand how people could talk about such books as “The Americans” as ‘having narrative’. To me it was a collection of (very well presented) images, but carried no discernable/logical narrative. This was because I couldn’t separate photographic narrative from literary narrative. Substituting narrative for essay makes so much more sense to me. “The Americans” is more like a group discussion where subjects are addressed at will and randomly, but with an overall agenda (American people) to roughly keep the discussion focussed on a general theme.
With a linear photographic structure, one can, like a book that has been read before, opt to skip sections that one may feel are of a lesser interest, to a latter and more interesting part of the story. Because “The Americans” does not follow this rigid linear format, knowing the supreme quality that all the images contain, it is difficult to want to skip anything. Ironically the quality and format of the book dictate that you view the book in a linear way i.e start at the front and view page-by-page to the end.
Postmodern narrative
Post modern narrative, like all things labelled ‘Post modern’ is merely a label to assign to the latest development in any given area. At some point post modern will have to be re labelled as ‘just’ modern, or probably a sub genre of modern, as we as a race continue in our search for whatever is next in any given field, whether it be literature, art or photography.
This aside, In Roland Barthes essay “The Death of the Author” the work that he chooses to dissect with a view to exemplifying how we the reader should be seeing the options open to us, and thus taking control of ‘the read’, and releasing the author from any rigidity within the confines of his/her work, is Honoré de Balzac’s “Sarrasine”. Barthes draws from the description of Zambinella (a castrato posing as a woman) for his post mortem; ‘This was woman herself, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims, her instinctive worries, her impetuous boldness, her fussing, and her delicious sensibility.’ He goes on to ask a series of questions which prompt us to ask ourselves who it is that actually possesses the voice, giving us five options. He goes further, and suggests that ‘ … writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin’. I think he is suggesting that by and large most pre post modern literature is too rigid and does not allow the reader to exercise his/her own interpretation once the words have been committed to the page.
Many post modern authors looked at the aged format, deconstructed it and then threw away the rule book before committing to paper their work, often turning the format of start, middle & end on it’s head. Many other techniques and tricks have been used, once authors had broken free of the confines of standard format.
Barthes tries to encapsulate the future of writing by finishing his essay with the thought provoking adage “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”
For me now, the task is to take this information away and apply it to my work, as I am clearly a ‘Modern’ minded photographer, and if I am to grow and expand my vision and work, I need to transcend ‘Modern’ and embrace ‘Post modern’ photography and its way of thinking and constructing images.
- Smith, W. Eugene (1948). Country Doctor. New York: Life (magazine)
- Smith, W. Eugene & M Aileen (1975). Minamata. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
- Campbell, B (2009). The Dad Project.
- David Hurn/Magnum & Bill Jay (1997). On Being a Photographer. Anacortes, WA, USA: LensWork Publishing
- Frank. Robert (1958). The Americans. New York: Grove Press
- Barthes, Roland (1977). Image Music Text. London: Fontana Press
- Balzac, Honore (2010). La Comédie Humaine. Kela, Montana USA: Kessinger Publishing Co
I see! 