Documentary photography:
Images of the working classes and poverty.
Reporting and war.
There is a power balance in documentary photographer and the subject - one always has more power than the other, this is usually the photographer.
Recording an important historical event, documenting the people power.
William Edward Killburn. 'The great chartist meeting at the common' 1848.
The photographer is an invisible observer. His presence is not acknowledged by the people in the image.
Grahame Clarke:
in many contexts the notion of a literal and objective record of 'history' is a limited illusion. It ignores the entire cultural and social background against which the image was taken.
Russel Lee
'Interior of a black farmers house' 1939.
No human being in the photo.
Dorothea Lange
'Migrant mother' 1936.
No conversation with the subject, not asking the woman in the photo her name, or anything about her, The woman is merely an object in a photograph. The cull of images matters more than the poverty in which it is to represent.
-Images seen in magazine.
Other images provide context, we are given more information about the ife of the woman and her children. The images taken from afar better describe the social situation and reveal the real conditions however the closest was chosen for publication because it was the best photograph.
Walker Evans photography.
Modernist aesthetic, pure and straight photography which was valued in documentary photography at the time. Showing the white lines etc around the edge, images are left un cropped without manipulation.
American documentary photography, obsessed with things and not people.
For example Walker Evans coca cola shack.
'Graveyard, houses and steel mill, Bethlehem Pennsylvania.'
Robert Frank goes on a road trip through America. He redefines documentary photography in the 1950's. Unusual approach to documentary, not showing the faces of his subjects, 'parade- Hoboken, New Jersey'
William Klein 'Dance in Brooklyn' 1955.
Goes away from the idea that everything has to be informational, uses blur and grain to create a dark condition.
Captures the movement of the city.
Magnum group founded in 1947 by Cartier-Bresson and capa.
A group of people that want to document the world.
'The decisive moment' - Bresson.
Photography achieves its highest distinction- reflecting the university of the human condition in s never- to- be retrieved fraction of a second. -Cartier-Bresson.
France. Paris. Place de l'Europe. Gare saint Lazare. 1932.
No manipulation of the image, modernist aesthetic.
Robert Capa 'The falling soldier' 1936.
Photographed at a location where there was no fighting. Gone back and tried to reconstruct the photo. The location implied in the photograph is not the location where war took place.
'Normandy, France' 1945.
Implies that he is in the water, and is a soldier. The camera and a gun become one in the same.
George Rodger
'Bergen-Belson concentration camp' 1945.
stays away from the horror of photography. Could take close up documentary photos. However takes them with a sense of respect and distance.
Robert Haeberle 'People about to be shot' 1969.
Photographer shouts 'hold it' before people are about to be shot.
so that he the photography can 'shoot' the people first, thus creating a harrowing image.
William Neidich.
Constructs photography of events that are missing in photographic history. Reconstructs events and photographs them, when they would be impossible to have shot at the time. Reconstructs American history- American cover ups.
Edward Curtis Native North.
Sepia and Softness. Documenting the disappearance of this tribal existence. However it does not show why or who is responsible for this fading culture. William Neidich then goes back and constructs the missing links and photographs them. Therefore photographing the Americans killing the Native Americans in reference to the native American genocide and The Native American removal act.
