© W. Eugene Smith
The failure that outlasts its flaws. W. Eugene Smith, Pittsburgh, 1955–1958
When an unfinished work reaches me, the first thing I want to know is whether there is something inside that holds. Not whether photographs are missing, not why it stopped. What is inside. The rest comes later.
Formal completeness and the value of a work are not the same question. The first is visible. The sequence works or it doesn’t, the work is closeable or it isn’t. The second doesn’t show itself in the same way. An unfinished project can hold something that finished works have lost. An urgency. A tension still open.
W. Eugene Smith photographed Pittsburgh for three years. The original agreement: three weeks, one hundred photographs. He ended up with 17,000 negatives. In his lifetime he published only 88 photographs, in the Popular Photography Annual of 1958. In 1959 he said publicly: “I thought it was a failure that is going to outlast its flaws.” He was talking about the same work he considered his masterpiece.
Those two things coexisted. A formal failure and the most important work of his career. Most photographers cannot hold these two judgments together. Usually you either defend the work as if it were complete, or you abandon it because it isn’t. Smith did something else. He said both things, in public, without trying to reconcile them. Not many do.
As an editor, this distinction is part of the work. I often receive projects that are not yet ready, and perhaps never will be in the form the photographer has in mind, but with something inside that is precise and necessary. Recognizing that is already work. It is not the same as saying the work is finished. These are two different conversations, and almost always worth keeping separate.
An unfinished work is not necessarily a weak one. To evaluate it properly, you need to separate the question of form from the question of value. Confusing the two is a reading error.
Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Savarese
Marco Savarese is Editor-in-Chief at Eyeshot, the independent publisher he founded in Italy in 2018. He spends most of his year reading portfolios, judging the Open Call, and editing the magazine catalogue. The reading desk is open, and he takes one-to-one Professional Reviews from photographers working seriously on long-term projects.
Who Finishes Your Photograph
NOTE #210. A photo isn’t finished until it survives to where people see it. Paul Strand chose hand photogravure for Photographs of Mexico so the printed copy kept the tonal weight of his prints. Protect the tone to the end, or the worst medium decides for you.
What the Dark Does
NOTE #209. A face lost in shadow reads as underexposed, a defect to fix. Gordon Willis kept Brando’s eyes in the dark in The Godfather and held it against the studio. Before you rescue a shadow, ask what it does; if you can say it, you decided it.
The Place After
NOTE #208. Of a huge event, often only an ordinary place is left. In On This Site (1996) Joel Sternfeld photographed fifty banal American places where violence happened, each with a line of text. Photograph the aftermath, and let the line do the work.
The Photo Made Together
NOTE #206. Street photography teaches you to steal people; there’s another way. In Malick Sidibé’s Bamako studio the youth chose how to be seen. Before you take someone, ask how they’d want to look, and make the photo together.
Write Your Own Rules
NOTE #205. The thing that improves you most isn’t a new camera, it’s a short list of your own faults. Tony Ray-Jones kept a notebook of orders to himself and it shaped Martin Parr. Write your three rules and keep them in your pocket.
Watch the Master Work
NOTE #204. You don’t learn from a master’s finished prints, you learn from watching them work. In 1962 Joel Meyerowitz watched Robert Frank shoot, quit his job that day, and picked up a camera. Watch the body, not the result.
The Work Before the Name
NOTE #203. The worth of a photo and the worth of the byline are two different things. Koudelka shot the 1968 Prague invasion anonymously as ‘P.P.’ and revealed it sixteen years later. Photograph what must be photographed even when no one will know it was you.
The Subject You Run From
NOTE #202. The strongest subject you have is the one you’d rather not photograph. Ishiuchi Miyako went back to Yokosuka, the occupied base town she was taught to fear, and made it her life’s work. Point the camera where it’s uncomfortable.