Many claim I am a photographer of tragedy. In the greater sense I am not, for though I often photograph where the tragic emotion is present, the result is almost invariably affirmative.
W. Eugene SmithThe journalistic photographer can have no other than a personal approach; and it is impossible for him to be completely objective. Honestโyes. Objectiveโno.
W. Eugene SmithMy pictures are complex and so am I. When I am almost symbolistic in writing, there is a more limiting differenceโs of accepting, while I can be even more complex in the photographs and people can usually accept them within the framework of their own limitations or lack of limitations โ there is no dictionary meaningโฆ they can look up for the photographic image and allow it to confuse them.
W. Eugene SmithI would that my photographs might be, not the coverage of a news event, but an indictment of war - the brutal corrupting viciousness of its doing to the minds and bodies of men; and, that my photographs might be a powerful emotional catalyst to the reasoning which would help this vile and criminal stupidity from beginning again.
W. Eugene SmithUp to and including the moment of exposure, the photographer is working in an undeniably subjective way. By his choice of technical approach, by the selection of the subject matterand by his decision as to the exact cinematic instant of exposure, he is blending the variables of interpretation into an emotional whole.
W. Eugene Smith