4. What is Documentary Photography? [Week 2]

In this weeks lecture [October 12th], we looked at 'What Documentary Photography', to highlight it's importance, which should be obvious and known throughout this module. 

 Key Words : Truth, Objectivity, Issues, Information, People, Events, Reveal, Personal, Amateur, Record, Realism, Journalism, Passive Observers, Aesthetic, Primarly Historical Evidence/Context, Authenticity. 
Most of these keywords were highlighted in our groups last week. 
Can Be : A FORM, A GENRE, A TRADITION, A STYLE, A MOVEMENT.
'Has a special relationship to real life'

It's believed that the term 'Documentary' within Photography and film, was first used by a Dr John Grierson. 
He was (http://griersontrust.org) a prolific director and producer who influenced a brand new generation of documentary makers through his work with the Empire Marketing Board and the Post Office. 

'Night Mail' is one of Dr Greirson's most recognised Documentary Films, created in 1936, the film was meant to lift people's spirits during the recession. The film was created for social purposes, it made a drama out of the real, in order to keep the audience happy. It also documented the working class which was crucial to lifting the spirits. Even though it was classed as a true documentary film, there was one scene that included actors and also a script.  

Other Documentary Films...
Other, perhaps more recognisable Documentary Movies include Dziga Vertov's 'Man with a Movie Camera' (1929), which documented the city life, and Robert Flaherty's 'Man of Aran' (1934). Flaherty's film is considered a 'Fictional Documentary', about the life on the Aran Islands off the Western Coast of Ireland. 
Even though the term 'documentary' wasn't coined until 1926 by Dr Grierson, this doesn't mean that the documentary photographs didn't exist. Some documentary photographers included: Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, William Henry Jackson, Roger Fenton, Matthew Brady, Paul Seawright (modern).
P.H. Emmerson "Ricking the reed" from
Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, 1886

'Straight Photography' - refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, renouncing the use of manipulation. It grew in the early 20th century in opposition to 'pictorialism', this included the works of Dr Henry Peter Emmerson. 
  • Unmanipulated Photographic Prints
  • Higher Contrast
  • Sharp Focus
  • Aversion To Cropping 
  • Emphasis on the Underlying Abstract Geometric Structure of Subjects.

'Photojournalism' - is very closely linked to 'straight' Documentary Photography. It has a special relationship to the written word. 

 Timeliness - The images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events.
Objectivity - The situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events. They depict both content and tone.
Narrative - The images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level. 
How our final definition on Documentary Photography would sound:
“A genre of photography that presents images in their purest form to comment upon areas of social or cultural significance. Not withstanding the problems of manipulation and notions of truth it aims to be factual, informative, fair and accurate. It is a genre that crosses many other disciplines within the history and cultural fabric of society and as a result is possibly indefinable”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9. Street Portraits - Vivian Maier

Image
http://www.vivianmaier.com/ "A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." 'Piecing together Vivian Maier’s life can easily evoke Churchill’s famous quote about the vast land of Tsars and commissars that lay to the east. A person who fit the stereotypical European sensibilities of an independent liberated woman, accent and all, yet born in New York City. Someone who was intensely guarded and private, Vivian could be counted on to feistily preach her own very liberal worldview to anyone who cared to listen, or didn’t. Decidedly unmaterialistic, Vivian would come to amass a group of storage lockers stuffed to the brim with found items, art books, newspaper clippings, home films, as well as political tchotchkes and knick-knacks.' - From VivianMaier.com Vivian Maier was a nanny by occupation, but she has now wowed the world with her photography in which she captured some of the most interesting and peculiar aspects of Urban America from the 195
Read more

5. Fake or Not?

Image
Fake or Not? There are many issues surrounding Documentary Photographs, and the main one is the veracity of the photographs and if they are fake or real? Here are two very recognisable documentary photographs.  The one on the left is Arthur Rothstein's photograph 'Cattle Skull, Badlands', 1936. Rothstein was part of the Farm Security Administration, or the 'FSA', and was one of many photographers who were commissioned to photograph and document the effect that the Depression had on many rural parts of America. The 'FSA' was created to stress the efforts that must have been made to improve the lifestyle of share croppers  tenants  very poor landowning farmers and attempt to relocate them to land more suitable for their farming needs. The 'FSA' is very well known for it's influential photography program, even though it was small, between the years of 1935-1944 . Other images by Rothstein? Same Skulls? To begin we have the problem tha
Read more

29. Going for the New Topographics approach.

Image
Immediately, from my own interest and also from the root I'm going down, I know I want to be looking at the New Topographics, for research and for any inspiration. As I'm looking at man made buildings in the natural landscape, I feel that the New Topographics would be very suitable for me to research. Their photographs focused on Man-Altered Landscapes, and I feel that 'Castles' could very much, be a part of this theme Bernd and Hilla Becher The Bechers are the most recognised New Topographic Photographers, to me personally in any case. I know, from previous research that the Bechers would document the same features of various factories and industrial sites, that they believed were slowly fading and being demolished. From the MoMA Website: "The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their "typologies"—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a singl
Read more