William Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1918. He began taking photographs in 1932 and early subjects included sports, aviation and the Dust Bowl.
In 1942 Smith became a war photographer and spent the next three years covering the Pacific War. His most dramatic photographs were taken during the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. On the 23rd of May, Smith was seriously wounded by a Japanese shell fragment. He was taking a photograph at the time and the metal passed through his left hand before hitting the face. Smith was forced to return to the United States and he had to endure two years of hospitalization and plastic surgery.
Herman Stegos, age 11, hitting a home run over the fence. 1943.
This looks like a sepia picture, the focal point is the boy throwing the bat, the background is the boys on his baseball team. The whole picture is in sharp focus. I like this picture because it shows happiness unlike the pictures of war. The ground shows texture, and the light source is the sun from behing the camera.
Dog and soldiers 1940, foreground: pebbles middle ground: n/a background: trees and sky. Focal point: dog. The light is from a cloudy sky wich pushes a gloomy mood. The pebbles show texture. The dog is the focal point. This is a black and white picture. The most important thing is the focal point. to make this picture look better I would have different lighting, because this picture makes me feel sad.
The Walk to Paradise Garden, photograph by W. Eugene Smith, 1947.
Car, bridge, river, night by W. Eugene Smith, 1948
I think that the most successful part of your blog is the layout. I think it has got a very clean and classy look, which I like. An improvement to your blog would be a music player with some sweet lounge tunes. I think that the photo of the kids playing baseball represents community and culture simply because baseball is a typical American sport and has brought people together for a long time. I don’t really think that I can relate to any of the pictures because my country hasn’t been in a war since forever and most of Eugene Smith’s pictures reflect war. I feel like his pieces of work are valuable and important simply because of the seriousness they represent and the rough pictures of war.
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The aspects of this blog that are strong are the use of description when it pertains to the photos and artist information. The photos of this blog show characteristics of the community and society by showing the emotions in the people. I can relate to these photos because my family has been involved with the military for years and could have been near one of the photographed locations. These photos are important because they document war and transcribe emotion. -Kris
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