1. Documentary Photography. - [Week One]

Documentary Photography, FH2S12, 2012-13.

On Completion of this module students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate a knowledge and critical understanding of traditional and contemporary Documentary photography 
2. Demonstrate through the production of a portfolio of work, your creative potential, technical skill and ability to work in a professional capacity. 
3. Consider and evaluate their own work within the practice of documentary photography. 
4. Communicate effectively ideas, information and arguments in a coherent structure to an audience.



 What is Documentary Photography?
Photography: A Critical Introduction, Liz Wells
"Documentary has been described as a form, a genre, a tradition, a style, a movement and a practice; it is not useful to try to offer a single definition of the word."

"..But if most photographs are a kind of documentary, how can we make distinctions between them?"

 "The photograph, technically and aesthetically, has a unique and distinctive relation with that which is/was in front of the camera."

Key Words : Recording, Reality, Research, Historical, Archives, Scientific, Political, Social, Media & Propaganda, Educational, Informational (News), Recording Events, Create, Unknown, Unfamiliar.

 In groups, we wrote a 250 paragraph explaining what we thought Documentary Photography was :

 "Documentary Photography is the means of recording the ‘real’, the veracity of reality. A documentary photograph is primarily educational, even if the photographer does not intend on it being so, this simply could be a photograph with a subject that is unfamiliar to the viewer, this could be a foreign landscape or an image that shows a different way of life.
      The documentary photographer can be the witness to life events without even meaning to, therefore making the viewer and audience a witness to the decisive moment that has been captured. Some events, such as birthday parties can become documents to the family.
      There are many different types of documentary photography; political, social, scientific, educational, informational, even fine art etc. Arguably all documentary photographs are historical, they record a moment in time that we may not see again, these events could simply be day-to-day events from the past and present.
      Documentary Photography can be related to the media, when we look back at historical events we sometimes refer to the documentary image. The problem, when it comes to photography in media and publicity, is that the image could have been used as propaganda, especially when it comes to current affairs. 
     There is no way to give a precise definition to documentary photography. It is such a broad subject, but ideally, a documentary photograph is a recording of the ‘real’."

  • Assignment One - Jounrey to Uni  - Bring to the session next week
  • Assignment Two - Street Portraits - Friday 2nd November
  • Assignment Three - 24/7 - Friday December 14th
  • Official Hand In For all three, March 22nd.

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