Eugene Smith

SMITH, W. Eugene (1918.12.30-1978.10.15) Wichita, Kansas, USA. World-renown photographer who photographed Minamata mercury-poisoning victims for Life magazine.

Started taking photos from around age 14. Smith visited Japan three times. The first time was during World War II as a reporter for Life magazine. He was assigned on the US aircraft carrier Bunker Hill in 1944 and got to photograph bombing raids on Tokyo, the invasion of Iwo Jima, and the battle of Okinawa. In May 1945, he was injured by a shell fragment on Okinawa, prompting him to return to New York.

His second trip to Japan was in 1961 at the invitation of Hitachi, Ltd. He was commissioned to photograph the company and employees and stayed for one year.

In 1971, Smith came back a third time and lived in a small fishing village in Kumamoto Pref. with his wife Aileen (a former part-time interpreter for Dentsu) for three years. (They had initially planned to stay for only three months.)

The fishing village was called Minamata. The subsequent photos were published in Asahi Camera, Camera 35, and Life ("Death-Flow from a Pipe") magazines and in a book called "Minamata." The photos brought world attention to the Minamata disease caused by mercury pollution released in the ocean by a company called Chisso.

The most famous photo was that of KAMIMURA Tomoko, who was in the bath cradled in her mother's arms. Born in 1956, Tomoko suffered mercury poisoning which had entered her bloodstream through the placenta. She was born blind and deaf and with useless legs. Smith learned about Tomoko's daily bath routine every afternoon and asked her mother if he could photograph them. He carefully checked the bath's lighting which came through an opaque window. He thought 3 p.m. was best, and took the famous photo in Dec. 1971.

Smith and his wife were attacked and injured in January 1972 during a clash between the victims and Chisso employees at the Chisso Factory in Goi. Chisso employees violently expelled the victims from the premises. Smith had to seek medical treatment in the U.S. for his injuries.

Although Smith never learned to speak Japanese, he was very fond of Japan and considered it to be his second home. A major exhibition called "Japan Through the Eyes of W. Eugene Smith" was held in late 1996 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Book review Japan Through the Eyes of W. Eugene Smith