By the mid-forties it seemed to most talented young photographers that the future of photography would be within the magazines.
The reason? Let millions view your picture through their pages or let only your friends and family to view them from your prints. It was understood that the magazines presented difficulties. One’s own interests and opinions were not necessarily identical with ones of another, especially when we are talking about the printing establishment. It would not be impossible though and with enough talent and energy one could not only use the establishment, but in time reform it.
There was a constant battle between photographers,editors and writers (and still is) as they were all part of the same family and yet, they all wanted to pass their own ways and ideas to the public. Eugene Smith was perhaps the photographer who tried most heroically to make the magazine photostory meet the standards of coherence, intensity, and personal accountability that one expects of a work of art. He might have really made a change since then and yet, we only need to take a look at the present day, only to realise that many photo magazines, will turn down one’s work in the blink of an eye.
How many of us have sent material to magazines, either in the form of images or even articles, only to find out that we will not even receive a reply from the magazine’s editor. How disappointing and disheartening for one’s work and ambition.
The essays photographed by Smith during the decade after the Second World War remain memorable; they probably represent the highest success that photography achieved within the format of the magazine photostory.
William Eugene Smith 1918-1978
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