W Eugene Smith and James Natchwey Photo Show at the MFA

Did a meet up at the Museum of Fine Art for the W Eugene Smith and James Natchwey Photo Exhibit. As usual for the museum meet ups few show up but that is okay. I understand that not everyone is into looking at photographs as much as I am. The group that did come seemed to enjoy seeing the photos and we had a good discussion. 

Smith's portion was his photo essay for Life Magazine, The Country Doctor, published in 1948. One of the group asked if I recalled the story when it was published and I really didn't have an answer. I first started taking photographs in 1947 and at that time Life, Look, Harpers, Saturday Evening Post were pretty standard fare so it is possible. Of course, I have been reading about Smith's essay for sixty years so it is hard to say whether I remember the original or whether I just have become so familiar with it that it seems like I remember the original. It is always good to see the original photographs either way. Life, of course, had a lab where the photographers sent the film. Smith was fired from Life twice, I believe, because he refused to let anyone else process his film or make his prints. He also insisted on more editorial control on the photo layouts. Stubborn, hard headed, photographer--don't see a correlation. 

Natchwey is more current and as a result the photos were much more gruesome. There is one shot of the back of an AIDS patient that looks as though there is no meat, just skin and bones, a skeleton draped in a covering--reminiscent of the photographs of Americans repatriated from the Japanese prisoner of war camps at the end of WWII only probably even thinner. And one college probably thirty feet long composed of photographs from the operating room of a MASH unit in the Middle East. Heart wrenching. Very disturbing photographs. Natchwey has put himself into the mist of the worst of human conditions for his photography.
 
On a whole, it was not as compelling as the Photography/War exhibit from last week but only because it was more limited in scope and considerably smaller.