W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) defined a new style of photojournalism in the 1940s and early 1950s through photo-essays such as Man of Mercy, Country Doctor, Spanish Village, and Nurse Midwife published in LIFE magazine. Smith brought the viewer closer to the subjects of his image which dominate the frame. As well, his images displayed a critical and perceptive humanism. Smith wrote that, "My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself …" His final work, Minamata (1975), produced in collaboration with his second wife, is an essay in photographs and words of the tragic effect of mercury pollution on this small fishing village in Japan.

Born in Wichita, Kansas, Smith photographed for local newspapers before moving to New York city in 1936 and working for Newsweek. He soon switched to Life where he made a name for himself during WWII in the Pacific Theater. Smith was unhappy with his lack of input into creative decisions at Life and he left in 1954. In 1955 he joined the Magnum photo agency. He worked on a variety of projects including a photographic documentary of Pittsburgh, the Jazz Loft Project, and, his images which show the tragic effects of Mercury poisoning of a small fishing village, Minamata, by the Chisso Company. Smith was savagely beaten in 1972, probably by employees of the Chisso Company. He moved to Arizona in 1974, and published Minamata in 1975. He died of a stroke in 1978.

Life magazine began in 1883 as a limited-circulation humor magazine. Henry Luce purchased the rights to the name in 1936 and changed the magazine to become America's first weekly news magazine devoted to photojournalism. Life dominated the market for 40 years selling more than 13.5 million copies a week at its peak. In the 1960s, however, due to competition from television, circulation declined and in 1972 the magazine stoped publishing as a weekly.