There's a great slideshow up at New York magazine of work by W Eugene Smith. Here's an intro:
"Smith was mid-century America’s greatest photojournalist. His work in Life magazine, during and after World War II, made him rich and famous. Then he went to Pittsburgh on a three-week assignment to produce 100 prints for a book celebrating the city. The three weeks turned into a year, and in the end Smith wound up snapping 22,000 pictures, envisioning a work as epic as Beethoven’s late string quartets.
Smith never finished the book, and from then on, nobody wanted to hire him, fearing he’d spin out on another quixotic odyssey. And so he went a little crazy."
Smith spent eight years cooped up in his Manhattan apartment, taking photos out of his window.
The results are maddeningly good.