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I am constantly torn between the attitude of the conscientious journalist who is a recorder and interpreter of the facts and of the creative artist who often is necessarily at poetic odds with the literal facts.

W. Eugene Smith

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W. Eugene Smith
Age: 59 †
Born: 1918
Born: December 30
Died: 1978
Died: October 15
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
War Photographer
Wichita
Kansas
William Eugene Smith
Vilyam Yugin Smit
$15V. Yug'in Smit
V. Yugin Smit
$15Vilyam Yug'in Smit
Eugene Smith
W Eugene Smith
Vilyam Yugin
Yug'in Smit
Gene Smith
Yugin Smit
Necessarily
Recorders
Constantly
Interpreter
Attitude
Literal
Creative
Torn
Often
Poetic
Artist
Odds
Facts
Journalist
Recorder
Photographer
Conscientious

More quotes by W. Eugene Smith

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Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.
W. Eugene Smith
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The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera.
W. Eugene Smith
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With considerable soul searching, that to the utmost of my ability, I have let truth be the prejudice.
W. Eugene Smith
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I try to take what voice I have and I give it to those who don’t have one at all.
W. Eugene Smith
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An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.
W. Eugene Smith
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Never have I found the limits of the photographic potential. Every horizon, upon being reached, reveals another beckoning in the distance. Always, I am on the threshold.
W. Eugene Smith
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I didn’t write the rules. Why would I follow them?
W. Eugene Smith
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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.
W. Eugene Smith
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My photographs at best hold only a small length, but through them I would suggest and criticize and illuminate and try to give compassionate understanding.
W. Eugene Smith
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The journalistic photographer can have no other than a personal approach and it is impossible for him to be completely objective. Honest—yes. Objective—no.
W. Eugene Smith
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Negatives are the notebooks, the jottings, the false starts, the whims, the poor drafts, and the good draft but never the completed version of the work The print and a proper one is the only completed photograph, whether it is specifically shaded for reproduction, or for a museum wall.
W. Eugene Smith
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Up 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
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You can't photograph if you're not in love.
W. Eugene Smith
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I 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 Smith
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The photographer must bear the responsibility for his work and its effect …[for] photographic journalism, because of its tremendous audience reached by publications using it, has more influence on public thinking than any other branch of photography.
W. Eugene Smith
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What's the best type of light? Why that would be available light... and by available light I mean any damn light is available.
W. Eugene Smith
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...and each time I pressed the shutter release it was a shouted condemnation hurled with the hope that the picture might survive through the years, with the hope that they might echo through the minds of men in the future - causing them caution and remembrance and realization.
W. Eugene Smith
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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 Smith
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In music I still prefer the minor key, and in printing I like the light coming from the dark. I like pictures that surmount the darkness, and many of my photographs are that way. It is the way I see photographically. For practical reasons, I think it looks better in print too.
W. Eugene Smith
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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.
W. Eugene Smith