Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/12/26

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Subject: [Leica] Stories
From: neal at nairobisafari.com (Neal Friedenthal)
Date: Sun Dec 26 19:29:28 2004

>OK as the uncultured heathen amongst us, which photo is this? This sounds 
>like the (B&W) photo I saw of a mother bathing a (Hiroshima?) poisoned 
>child? I am sorry. I should know whether that photo is by Smith or some 
>other great photographer, but I am... well, uncultured.

You're most likely thinking of the correct shot, but it was taken in 
Minamata Japan and the girl , Tomoko Uemura, was suffering from the effects 
of severe mercury poisoning.  The photo appeared in 
"Life" among other publications and is featured as the last photo in the 
book "Let Truth be the Prejudice   W. Eugene Smith: His Life and 
Photographs".  Smith had a show by the same name in 1971 
at the Jewish Museum in New York, this was prior to the Minamata project. I 
had the honor to meet him at that show and talk with him for a few seconds, 
I was 21 at the time and that short 
conversation is why I still  try to take photos today.

Neal F