Why? Because it is both a classic photojournalist book and a classic environmentalist book. Published in 1975 (mine's a first edition) it featured the work of renowned photographer and control freak W. Eugene Smith and his wife Aileen Smith.
It tells the story of Minamata. I've only read the first few pages, and I knew the basic story, and it's harrowing. See wikipedia for the details.
In the prologue, and remember this is 1970, Smith writes "Obviously there is no doubt in our minds that the world has got itself into terrible trouble through pollution. Let me amend that; "the world" sounds too remote, too abstract. Persons like us and our neighbors are right now being poisoned through the air, the water, the food we must have. ... whether the poison is mercury, or asbestos, or food additives, or radiation, or something else [it] is closing more tightly upon us each day. Pollution growth is still running far ahead of any anti-pollution conscience."
This was 30 years ago, 10 years after Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' kick started an environmentalist movement, and things haven't changed a great deal. Maybe I'm just saddened about this mess of ours after seeing Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' but it does make me think.
Oh and by the way, the photos are beautiful, the text superbly written, and the printing the best I have seen in a photography book from the 1970's. I may let people look at it if they come round to my place, and bring their own cotton gloves.
1 comment:
Trully a great book. I still remember the first time I saw it. A friend had just bought a copy and bought it to the flat I was living in and we looked at it for hours, talking about both the photographs and the "story".
Post a Comment