The 2nd greatest photograph ever made

[reon]

Pick 10 people to name their choice of the 10 greatest photographs and you'll get 10 completely different lists. My favorite photography blogger (http://theonlinephotographe r.blogspot.com/) just made his and the result is as controvertial as some of the photographs themselves. I like looking at the night sky so I tend to like his number 1 (http://theonlinephotographe r.blogspot.com/2006/06/top-ten-number-1_06.html) choice (although I doubt it would top my list if I ever made one).

But the second on the list is the reason for this post. When I first saw Tomoko Uemura in her Bath (http://theonlinephotographe r.blogspot.com/2006/05/top-ten-number-2_30.html) by W. Eugene Smith some years ago, it struck me as one of the most vivid examples of the convergence of technical brilliance and poignant subject matter in a photograph. The composition, lighting, the colors (black & white, that is; I doubt this image would have been effective in color), the stark sorroundings and finally the naked mother and daughter in a bath conveys unmistakably one thing and nothing else: a mother's love for her child.

From the Online Photographer:

Tomoko Uemura was born with massive birth defects caused by environmental poisoning from a chemical plant. She's not dead; and her mother is not grieving. In fact, what's remarkable about the picture—again, in addition to its really breathtaking formal and tonal perfection—is the obvious humanity of Tomoko and, especially, the infinite caring, gentleness, and sympathy in her mother's gaze. Like a great masterpiece of music, you could look at that mother's expression for the rest of your life and never exhaust its human richness and its connection to the elemental selflessness and depth of parental love.Here are some related links:
Tomoko Uemura, R.I.P. (http://www.digitaljournalis t.org/issue0007/hughes.htm)
Minamata Disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease)
In Minamata, a "sad anniversary" (http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200605010362.html ) (a recent news report from Asahi Shimbun)
End of Tragedy in Pictures (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=he alth&res=9C07E5D8153DF930 A3575BC0A961958260) (cached here (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:NE5st gxYF80J:query.nytime s.com/gst/fullpage.html%3Fres% 3D9C07E5D8153DF930A3 575BC0A961958260%26s ec%3Dhealth%26pagewa nted%3Dprint+minamat a+site:nytimes.com&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&client=firefox-a))

[chris_rock]

hi there. may i suggest you check out the hiroshima and nagasaki pics.

[Firipinjin]

I used to subscribe to Life magazine because the featured photos in every issue are simply astounding.

I have always liked the photos of Ansel Adams and Sebastian Salgado.

[reon]

hi there. may i suggest you check out the hiroshima and nagasaki pics.I would have if you gave the links. :)

I've been to Hiroshima and have visited the Atomic Bomb Dome (http://www.pcf.city.hiroshi ma.jp/top_e.html) where many pictures of Hiroshima after the bomb are displayed. However, I didn't find any picture that compares to this one, maybe because most of the pictures were about destruction and suffering.

The photographer could have taken Tomoko Uemura's picture and emphasized her deformities. He could have taken a picture that depicts the hardships these families faced and maybe he would have made good pictures with those themes. Yet despite all obvious things that others would have depicted, he chose the theme of "the love of a mother for her child".

The picture of Tomoko with her mother is not about suffering or the horrors of industrial pollution. It's about parental love, the most basic bond there is in nature. That's the difference that makes it a great picture and separates it from the rest.

[dcat]

The photographer could have taken Tomoko Uemura's picture and emphasized her deformities. He could have taken a picture that depicts the hardships these families faced and maybe he would have made good pictures with those themes. Yet despite all obvious things that others would have depicted, he chose the theme of "the love of a mother for her child".

The picture of Tomoko with her mother is not about suffering or the horrors of industrial pollution. It's about parental love, the most basic bond there is in nature. That's the difference that makes it a great picture and separates it from the rest.

hi reon! :)

This photograph is really good, I agree. But after reading some of the details about that photograph, I found out that it was staged. My immediate reaction after this information sunk in was that it might not be that great after all. Hmmn... cause you see I always thought that great pictures should depict people's natural humanity and their connection to the natural environment. I have two sets of questions that are connected to each other: the first deals with the environment, and the second concerns the effect of the photograph itself.

I don't want to criticise the photo but I can't help asking myself would the reaction and behavior of the mother and child in the photograph be the same if the whole scene wasn't staged? It might be, but the very fact that it was staged may have lessen the authenticity of the work. Do you sometimes think that it makes it less great if the photograph was taken on a controlled situation?

What was the photographer's intention? Because he certainly chose an extreme environment to highlight his theme. The thought that came to my mind was that we are deeply moved by the picture because it seems that the daughter's disability made the mother's love for her child more heroic than it seems. If the child in the photograph was normal would the connection between the mother and daughter be less great? We are moved because we do not know how it is to have a child like Tomoko, and we just do not know how it feels like, and we doubt ourselves whether we could do as much as the mother in the picture. However, in the standpoint of most parents I believe that they love their children no less greater, normal or disabled. If this is the case, the effect of the photograph to the viewers would ultimately be an illusion of "greater love" or "more heroism" on the part of the mother that in fact does not exist since all parents would do no less for their children in the same situation.

I'm sorry, I am not a photography critic and I don't know if my opinion about this photograph is valid. So please illuminate my doubts, and explain to me if I'm taking it too far. :)

[NemoySpruce]

I think, best way to appreciate a photograph(or anything described as 'art') is to forget the background story. Forget the photographer's intention, forget how it was made, whether or not it was staged. Forget aperture, lighting, balance and all that crap. Look at it and figure out how it makes you feel. If it makes you feel happy or sad or scared, if it makes you feel a basic emotion, then that piece of art is good. If it inspires you to write a poem, song or whatever, then that artwork is excellent. If you find your eyes getting misty, and uncontrollable rage stirring within you, if it changes your perspective in something, thats superior art. it depends on who is looking at it, background story is similar to the outtakes in movies that they sometimes show when the credits are rolling up, their interesting but not really connected with the piece.

[dcat]

If you find your eyes getting misty, and uncontrollable rage stirring within you, if it changes your perspective in something, thats superior art. it depends on who is looking at it, background story is similar to the outtakes in movies that they sometimes show when the credits are rolling up, their interesting but not really connected with the piece.

Good point NemoySpruce. :)

However, did you ever consider that for movies, paintings, sculptures and other forms of art that would take considerable time to create, we don't really have any options other than to plan them. The only thing that we can do is to recreate things as naturally (without bias) and as imaginative as possible even though we are actually artificially remaking them.

Photographs on the other hand are mirrors of reality that are often created only in split seconds so that the choice of moments and the settings in which they are captured really matters a lot. Content and intention become very important at this point. When trying to capture a portrait, for instance, we are moved much more with those that are taken as unpretentiously as possible, at best, without the knowledge of the subject. The purpose of this is for us to capture that moment when people are at their most genuine state.

On a related subject, last year we organized a series of documentary films in our university about the causes of various conflicts in this world, ranging from Rwanda, Congo, to Cambodia, East Timor and others. We noticed that some of the documentaries focused so much on portraying brutal violence and extremities that there are dangers of them becoming films about morbid killings rather than to explain causes of conflicts and how to solve them. Mind you, they had very powerful effects on the viewers, but they did this by manipulating viewers' emotions, provoking their reactions by focusing too much on gruesome events rather than by focusing on their original objective: to explain conflicts.

In other words, contents and intentions are salient concepts for serious works. Ignoring these concepts would make people vulnerable to manipulations and illusions.

[NemoySpruce]

I see your point. You are saying that you believe that for a photograph to be 'great' it should capture the moment in an unadulterated form. But what you are describing here;

--Photographs on the other hand are mirrors of reality that are often created only in split seconds so that the choice of moments and the settings in which they are captured really matters a lot--

is only one type of photography. It sounds like you are talking about journalistic photography, wherein the goal is to capture the moment or story as truthfully as possible. In this kind of photography the background details or text plays an important part, but to apreciate the shot as an artform, you have to look at the photo on its own, without the text. Its confusing to compare a photograph to a documentary, because a documentary is borderline art form/journalism, a bit heavy on the journalism side.

Another example is the number 1 (http://theonlinephotographe r.blogspot.com/2006/06/top-ten-number-1_06.html) choice from the blog. For me, this has little artistic value, because when I look at it, I dont feel anything, but this has enormous historic value.

I guess we all have different ways of looking at things :D

[reon]

I think, best way to appreciate a photograph(or anything described as 'art') is to forget the background story. Forget the photographer's intention, forget how it was made, whether or not it was staged.It's true a work of art should stand on it's own but the background story of how it was made can be part of the art itself (and may even make or break someone's work).

In the news recently is the story of the Japanese painter who was accused of plagiarism (http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/entertainment/news/20060529p2a00m0et015 000c.html) and eventually stripped of the Art Encouragement Prize (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060606TDY01002.htm ) awarded to him by the Cultural Affairs Agency of Japan. How a picture (or a painting) was made may be as important as how it looks.

Some people say the photograph in question (Tomoko Uemura) was "staged". "Staged" is a loaded word that implies the photographer somehow engaged in "manufacturing" the picture. I don't think this is the case. It think it is perfectly acceptable for the photographer to decide how and where the mother and child should be photographed.

Note however that if the photographer somehow cajoled his subjects to do things they normally don't do, then I have to object. But bathing (together) is a very natural thing to do in Japan (or somewhere else in the world). I don't think this is "staged". The photographer simply anticipated the event (they probably bathe if not everyday then several times a week), made the right decisions regarding composition and lighting and other technical details, and just let the mother and child bathe and press the shutter. This is an honest picture in the sense that the photographer didn't engage in fakery.

Related links:

Comparisons and the Odious: Fakery, Actual and Conceptual (http://www.photo.net/columns/mjohnston/column56/)
Conceptual Art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art)

[NemoySpruce]

It's true a work of art should stand on it's own but the background story of how it was made can be part of the art itself (and may even make or break someone's work).



True. commercial value and outright success of any art, relies heavily on how it was made, by who and for what reasons, and some marketing never hurt either. And these details add to the piece like icing on a cake. But when someone asks you, 'What do you think of it?' Then you have to tune all that icing down, you cannot let it affect your opinion. just look at the piece, and let yourself (your experiences/knowledge, your person) interact with it. If it doesnt make you feel anything, then it is artistically worthless to you. If you like it because its expensive, or because you appreciate the skill poured into it and how it was made, then its value to you is economic. If you like it because it marks a great event in your life, then that has historic value. It is true that these kinds of values often exist together in an art piece, but the one that gives something true lasting value is the artistic or emotional value. If a photograph reminds you of your mortality, or if it makes you feel alive, then having that photograph is extremely important to you, no matter how much effort the photographer put into it, doesnt matter what his intentions where when he took it, and doesnt matter if it will cost you 500yen or 50million yen to purchase, its value to you is the same.

[love0308]

nung makita ko po yung picture kinilabutan po ako di po dahil sa hitsura ni Tomoko Uemura kundi po i can feel the love of a mother. If I were going to judge number one po sa akin ang picture ni Tomoko:D