Life magazine.
Smith is remembered as one of the greatest documentary photographers of all time. He pretty much invented the “photographic essay” form that became a staple of American print journalism. From the 1940s until the 1970s, this prickly, unreasonable, irrational and profoundly alcoholic misfit was also one of the most important voices in visual journalism the world has ever known.
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Johnny Depp plays American photographer William Eugene (Gene) Smith in Minamata.
You might already be familiar with the photographs that Smith sent back to his editors at
Life. One of those shots –
Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath – showing a young woman afflicted with mercury poisoning being bathed by her mother, came to define the tragedy and also to redefine the impact and importance a single photograph could have.