American Cinematographer - December 2016 - 12

President's Desk
The other night, after a long day of shooting, I had a dream - or, rather, a nightmare.
In the dream, we shot all day long with three cameras. Shooting the rehearsals, never cutting between
takes, changing shots on the fly, even letting the cameras run while we were relighting. The half-hour lunch
brought some short-lived sanity, and then it was an afternoon of similarly feverish recording of image upon
image. Wrap made everything cool down, and we found we'd finished the day with a tally of 2TB of
photographed material - five hours of raw footage!
With that, I woke up from my nightmare and found it was now the middle of the night. Unable to
get back to sleep, I browsed through my collection of photography books. My eye was caught by a book on
William Eugene Smith, an American photojournalist, strong willed and opinionated, never shy with expletive-laden language, and often living on razor's edge, uncompromisingly devoted to his work. He would scold
photo editors who tried to correct his vision, and he had no hesitations about abandoning an assignment
midway through, despite badly needing a paycheck. Over the years he has been credited with developing the photo essay into its
ultimate form. He was also an exacting printer, and the combination of innovation, integrity and technical mastery in his photography has made his work the standard by which photojournalism has been measured for many years.
Specifically, I was looking at his photographic essay on the pollution of a drinking-water supply that damaged the health of
many children in Minamata, Japan. What caught my sleepy eyes were the contact sheets of his 35mm black-and-white negatives
displayed on the inside cover of the book. As you know, there are 36 exposures on a roll of 35mm film, and usually the first three
are wasted in rapid succession to arrive at the first real exposure, to eliminate potential image fogging. So, effectively this roll of film
contained 33 exposures. You could see that they were all carefully exposed and taken with only a few multiples. One image in
particular stood out: a mother bathing her disfigured daughter. The expression on their faces eluded both hope and desperation,
the cleansing bath represented an almost religious dismissal, and the three-quarter soft backlight exuded plain honesty.
Known as "Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath," the image represents a photojournalistic beauty rarely seen, and is considered
by some to be one of the most important photographs of the 20th century. First published in Life magazine, this portrait probably
represents one of Smith's most telling images, and it certainly deserves its place in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. But it's
important to note that 10 other exposures on that same roll of only 33 photographs went on to claim a place in various collections
and museums.
What Smith shows us is the ultimate commitment to making an image. In addition to carefully selecting the moment at
which he would release the shutter of his camera - somewhat primitive by today's standards, as it had no motor drive - he then
nursed that image through the printing process, paying great attention to contrast and density, feverishly dodging the exposure of
the enlarger, and using the local-bleaching technique to achieve dramatic results.
Smith's tireless, dark and haunting work made me forget my nightmare, and gave me newfound gratitude and admiration
for his visual excellence and commitment. Satisfied, I went back to sleep, with three hours remaining before my alarm would go
off, calling me to rejoin my co-workers on set.
But the nightmare returned. This time, the film editors had spent hours looking through the five hours of raw material, after
which they concluded that, despite the volume of footage, certain crucial shots had never been photographed!
My alarm clock went off, saving me from embarrassment, and soon I was back on set. But as I settled into the day's work
and the cameras started rolling, recording frame upon frame, I quietly wondered what William Eugene Smith would have said in
his "expletive" way if his Life photo editor had told him that he had missed something in Minamata ...

Kees van Oostrum
ASC President

December 2016

American Cinematographer

Photo by Jacek Laskus, ASC, PSC.

Workflow!

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - December 2016