Photographer Stephen Dupont, a 2007 recipient, says about the W. Eugene Smith Fund grant: “… when you receive the Smith Grant you get this real sense of pride and mission to make sure that what you work out of it is worthy of the master himself and that really pushes you to the limits of success.”
The Unseen Eye is a longtime member of the Board of Directors of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund in Humanistic Photography. We refer to it as Smith or the Smith Fund. Look at the website. The grant most often comes at the point early in a photographer’s career when the funding to finish a long-term project is especially welcome.
We think of Smith as the most prestigious grant in photojournalism.
The list of past recipients reads like a “who’s who” of contemporary photography from Jane Evelyn Atwood 1980, Eugene Richards 1981, Sebastiao Salgado 1982 on to Joseph Swyenkyj 2014, Matt Black 2015, and Justyna Mielnikiewicz 2016. The call for entries went out several weeks ago and applications are due by May 31st.
The Eye reached out to past recipients and asked them to talk about the impact of the Smith Grant on their careers. This is Stephen Dupont’s full response. He received the Smith in 2007.
“The Smith Grant was instrumental in pushing me to complete a long-term project about the wars in Afghanistan. It gave me a sense of closure for this project so I could then have it published in book form. I send my dummy to Gerhard Steidl and some years later my book was published with him. When I went to meet Gerhard the first time at Steidl in Germany (we had tried meeting up earlier without success…he made two trips to Australia and both times I was away somewhere on assignment). So I flew to Germany to meet the man. I will never forget sitting in his library across from him as he looked thorough my original dummy and said…” this is almost a masterpiece…I want to publish your book”.
“What goes through your mind at that moment? Firstly, the utter excitement that Steidl is printing your book of course, then the sense of relief in a way that 20 years of work is coming to a close, then you think about all the people you met along the journey whose help and input made it all possible.”
“I think things would have been very different without the support and recognition of the Smith Grant. My book Generation AK: The Afghanistan Wars 1993 – 2012 went on to win some major awards including last year’s Olivier Rebbot Award and the POYi photo book of the year.”
“Lastly, I think when you receive the Smith Grant you get this real sense of pride and mission to make sure that your work is worthy of the master himself and that really pushes you to the limits of success.”
More recently Dupont has been “working on a long term project around the theme of “Death”, the rituals and culture of death in various societies and environments.” It can be viewed in a two part film screening right on Netflix in an episode as part of Tales By Light 2 and discovered through a trailer.
This fall he will return to Steidl “to print his next book called Locks, Chains & Engine Blocks that is actually dedicated to Gene Smith!”
The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography is now $35,000. It is presented annually in October to a photographer whose past work and proposed project, as judged by a panel of experts, follows the tradition of W. Eugene Smith’s concerned photography and dedicated compassion exhibited during his 45-year career as a photographic essayist. The Fund was started in 1978.
This year’s ceremony will take place on Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at the SVA Theater, 333 West 23rd St, New York. The doors will open at 6:30 PM and admission is free. Seating is not reserved, first come, first served.
W.M. Hunt
W.M Hunt is a photography collector, curator and consultant who lives and works in New York. He is a professor at School of Visual Arts and is on the Board of Directors of the W. Eugene Memorial Smith Found. His book entitled “The Unseen Eye” (published by Aperture) and focusing on his personal collection is one of the most intriguing compilations of photographs.
Applications for this year’s W. Eugene Smith Fund are available at the following address (deadline May 31st):
