Within this essay I will be looking at the development of the modern photo essay, specifically how W Eugene Smith was the pioneer of the modern photo essay. W Eugene Smith was the fundamental photographer when it came to the creation of the modern photo essay. It first became apparent after his ‘Country Doctor’ project, he spent 23 days photographing a local doctor in charge of caring for the entire ranching town. Smith created one of the most known photo essays to exist even in modern day, having done this he quickly became associated with the modern day photo essay format. He captured the indexicality needed within a photo essay, the point of life, death, presence and absence needed to tell a story, bitter or joyous, through a photo essay.

The photo essay was a movement, with the invention of the handheld film camera and halftone printing, magazines were created. The starting point for the photo essay was the magazine, Life being the first one to make a significant impact with 50% of the American population reading the magazines. The idea of printing and linking photos with text seems obvious, a ‘magazine’ wouldn’t be overly successful if it was just text. As the magazine movement spread worldwide, more and more magazines started to introduce more photos and less text, simply using text to link the photos together. In 1931, the more illustrated style of magazine was dramatically increasing its popularity, right up until world war two. Within world war two, the production stopped, instead the printing presses were used to print German propaganda. LIFE magazine was quickly taking over in the world of photojournalism, having started before the war in 1936 and then continuing onwards after the war. The term ‘photo essay’ was coined by Henry Luce the owner of LIFE magazine, Kurt Korff an editor within the magazine was the one to introduce and trail a new magazine concept. The photo essay was born, leaving behind the previous formalism photography style for one that focused on raw emotions and reality, telling a story through powerful photos. This led to the founder realising people wanted a true sight with many photos rather than a well written article, they wanted something they could glance at and understand. In 1936, pre world war two is when Luce, the founder of LIFE, started to implement this within the magazine. The first copy, using this photo essay style, featured the Columbia river dam, a political, controversial, attention grabbing image. Commenting on America and its historical progress to be building this dam while encouraging people to pick up the magazine. And, inside the same issue of LIFE a photo of a new born baby, mere seconds after birth. This was something that wasn’t an average photo to be in a magazine let alone without an article, although this image did have a caption. The caption however, doesn’t describe the photo or the reason for it nor does the image illustrate what is being said in the text, these are revolutionary steps within the photo essay production. LIFE became the known source for unique, entertaining journalism, developing the photo essay as they went, until W Eugene Smith produced his own take on the photo essay within LIFE and this became the format we know today. It is worth noting, while W Eugene Smith is considered to be the pioneer of the modern photo essay, his style was heavily influenced by the original creators and his publisher, at the time, take on photo journalism. 

W Eugene Smith, was the driving force of the modern photo essay, his country doctor essay becoming the known standard and style for photo essays within photojournalism. Showcased within his work is sheer depth, looking into every element of life, forcing the viewers to acknowledge all the good but more over the less documented raw reality of some of the subjects, from war and all its atrocities to the bleak reality of a country town doctor pushed to his limits. Unlike previous photo essay structures Smith left no rock unturned taking photo journalism to a new level, showcasing a new photo essay style in which he pushed to the limits to get a true account, unlike previous styles that simply took some good formalist style photos and left it at that, providing biased, unrealistic images. Smith, focused the country doctor essay around a single rural country doctor, following him and creating the narrative we know to be the ‘Country Doctor’ photo essay. By shooting for days beforehand without film, understanding what he wanted the aesthetic of the shoot to be, how he felt he could best represent the never ending, gruesome job of the country doctor. Smith was a realist and dedicated his life to the craft of allowing others to see the true reality, within the country doctor photo essay there are photos of life, death and everything in between. This is reminiscent of Smith’s earlier work, becoming the first photographer to produce a photo of a man dying, forcing the world to see the war in its all. Add photo This shot wasn’t taken with the formal elements in mind, completely contrasting the previous ideas on how to shoot for a magazine, Smith crossed lines many daren’t to go near. Looking at this shot, the situations Smith put himself in for the photo he felt the world needed to see was unlike many others. It would be simply immoral to judge this photo on anything other than the story it’s telling and how it is telling it. Smith didn’t work in photos that had good technical elements; he wanted people to feel and experience a snapshot of the scene in a quick glance, expanding peoples worlds with a series of images. Within my own work I have composed shots, which does contrast Smith’s style, however I have considered what I wanted to show, how I can add text (captions) in the style of LIFE editorial style. Having noticed Smith uses largely human emotion of the subject within shots to convey his message, I have constructed photoshoots in which I can connect and capture the emotion between the car/bike and owner. Smith always shoots in an ‘environmental portrait’ style due to the task of photojournalism. I have kept the same theme, allowing the background to speak for me in my images. In particular I like the comparison of this image and ‘country doctor drinking coffee after a long surgery?’  They are wildly different images of Smith’s being associated with the pinnacle of life and death and mine being focused around a sentimental car. I like the similarity of lack of camera acknowledgement and emotion portrayed within both shots. Even the dog within my photo adds not only another element to the photo but provides another emotional element, the shape of the dog looking down suggesting the interest and confusion as to how the car is dearly loved but in the current condition its in. Similar to Smith’s photo in which the Doctor appears exhausted and overwhelmed, having completed a job in which not only is he essential but he must have had some love for to commit to.

In contrast to W Eugene Smith’s photo essay development, within LIFE magazine, LOOK magazine attempted to make a similar photo essay. However they took a different approach, LIFE used a more formalistic style, creating high quality, technical photos. This contrasted Smith’s style of the many, small insight photo styles. LOOK was often considered to use a picture story style rather than a photo essay as such, while they seem similar the photo essay is less focused on technical elements instead looking at emotion, reality, whereas picture stories look to tell a tale through good quality photography, using well composed shots. Within Smith’s photo essay development he produced hundreds of photos, he actually aimed to create projects too vast for a gallery. LOOK on the other hand, while is the most comparable in terms of photo essays, how they were used and how they were developed, actually focused more on the single shot. Within my own project I used Smith’s photo essay, creating hundreds of photos, choosing the ones that while not being the best single images, told the story I hoped to show. LOOK used dramatic single shots on the cover of their magazines, normally completely unrelated to the contents inside, completely contrasting Smith’s developed abundance of photos often complimented with large chunks of text, explicitly, his Country Doctor essay was a true display of the contrast and development of the photo essay. LOOK started producing their magazines in 1937 which was over ten years before Smith produced what is considered to be the modern photo essay, however even when this was released LOOK stuck to their picture story style, focusing on single shots. 

Both LOOK and LIFE had a hand in developing the modern photo essay, but it is clear, truly W Eugene Smith was the developer of the modern photo essay format. His work is still known world wide to this day, even more so the historical impact of his work is something still deeply moving and eye opening to the modern viewer. This is largely due to his style but also the photo essay format, allowing the viewers to be transported to a new world, someone else’s life, good or bad. LOOK on the other hand, created world wide known work but it wasn’t revolutionary in style. Smith was the pioneer for the modern photo essay, in the format of large amounts of photos, not taken solely based on the formal elements, often complimented with text, but not describing the photos but trying to put the emotion and impact into words, further developing often already intense photos, forcing the point home. My style was similar to Smith’s to begin with creating photos ‘I could feel’ photos that others might not understand to begin with but hopefully once a collection of them are placed in front of them they can feel the impact and intention behind them. I love how Smith approached adding text into his work, further developing his photos rather than deconstructing them, making them devoid of meaning to a degree. Having said this, I have some photos I will add captions to explain the significance of the shot, as a few of my shoots are inanimate objects so need the explanation, alongside human elements in the others and following Smith’s idea of many good photos to tell a narrative rather than one which can be misleading and not allow people to truly understand.

Bibliography

Landwer-Johan, K. W. Eugene Smith – Master of the Photo Essay. [online] https://www.kevinlj.com/w-eugene-smith-master-of-the-photo-essay/ [accessed 7th Jan 2025]  

Kaninsky, M. Eugene Smith -Country Doctor A Photo Essay By W. Eugene Smith [online] Country Doctor a Photo Essay by W. Eugene Smith [accessed 9th Jan 2025] 

Khan, N W. Eugene Smith: HOW MINAMATA REDEFINED PHOTOJOURNALISM WITH A MORAL PURPOSE. [online] W. Eugene Smith: How Minamata Redefined Photojournalism with a Moral Purpose  [08/16/2024] 

Graf, C. The birth of the photo essay: The first issues of LIFE and LOOK [online] [accessed 28th Jan 2025] The birth of the photo essay: The first issues of LIFE and LOOK 
Sutherland, P. The Photo Essay [online] [accessed 29th Jan 2025] 1 The Photo Essay Patrick Sutherland University of the Arts London Email