Documentary Photography

AmericanSuburb X

2010-02-03T18:54:00.003Z

AmericanSuburb X

A fantastic amount of great photography

Interview // Judith Burrows - her project

2009-04-20T21:02:00.010+01:00

Judith Burrows is a portrait and documentary photographer.

She has done a documentary series about ’Les Amazones De Guinée’, a womens military band in Guinea.
In this interview she talks about how she researched and prepared for the shoot.

Documentary // BBC Genius of Photography

2009-04-18T19:47:00.003+01:00

I have to recommend this brilliant documentary series in six parts called
'The Genius of Photography' by BBC.

The series show the start of photography and how it evolved, war photography and commercial photography, photographic journeys, photographers potraying 'the home', the worth of photographs and the future for photography. It gives you an insight to a large amount of different photographers.

The documentary combines interviews, photographs and archive material in a well-composed way making it interesting all the way through. That's your PSB licence fee well spent !

Here are some clips from it on BBC's playlist on youtube.

Is it real ? // Arthur Rothstein

2009-04-18T19:43:00.006+01:00

In 1936 the American photographer Arthur Rothstein photographed a steer's skull lying on a cracked and waterless earth. It is taken during the depression in the 1930's where Rothstein was hired by FSA (Farm Security Administration) to photograph the state of the rural America. The photo is a famous symbol of the crisis in the agriculture at that time.

'The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands'
Arthur Rothstein ©

But Rothstein took two photos of this skull and the other photo show the skull lying on a strecht of grass, a much less symbolially powerful place. Rothstein admitted to having moved the skull a few metres to obtain the more dramatic effect with the cracked, dry earth.

Opponents in the press and Congress seized on this to attack the agency's credibility, calling the picture a fake.

The interfearance of the photographer makes up the question of wether this is documentary photography or not. Rothstein wanted to give his picture a more debt when moving the object to a background that would have more affect on the viewer. By doing so, is he taking away the documentary aspect of his photo ?

His picture turns into his own opinion, even though all photos have a certain amount of the photographers opinion, and he choses how we should interpret the photo.

War Photography today // James Nachtwey

2009-04-18T19:41:00.004+01:00

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are
my testimony. The events I have recorded should
not be forgotten and must not be repeated."
-James Nachtwey-

El Salvador, 1984 - Army evacuated wounded soldiers from village football field.

Romania, 1990 - An orphan in an institution for "incurables

Rwanda, 1994 - Survivor of Hutu death camp.
© James Nachtwey

James Nachtwey b.1948 is an American war photographer. He has taken photographs in war zones in the Eastern Europe, The Middle-East, Asia, Africa and Northern Ireland. He has covered issues not only of war, but also of aids, famine, industrial pollution, crime, drugsmugling and 9/11.
(Photographs from James Nachtweys homepage)

Here is the trailer for the War Photographer documentary featuring James Nachtwey. It is directed by Christian Frei and received an Acadamy Award nomination for best documentary.

Here is a clip from the film:

As I imagine how it is like to be out there in the battlefield, I feel both a wish to do the same, to get out there and report on the evil of warfare, still at the same time I feel afraid of seeing people and places that I cannot help. Can a photography make a change ? Can it stop the war?
I do hope that it can be a part of it. It seems as the world will never be free of wars, but the images from the wars show us what is really happening out there. That we must never forget how horrible it is and do everything we can to stop it.

Doc Photo Magazine // 8 Magazine

2009-04-18T18:54:00.005+01:00

Eight Magazine is a photography magazine feauring photojournalism, focusing mostly on independent reporting.

The magazine has photo stories and features by some of the world's leading photography talent, together with essays and columns by established writers.

Here is their blog / FOTO8

My photo projects // Two sisters in East London

2009-04-18T15:17:00.019+01:00

One assignment in my documentary photography class was to take a black and white portrait and we had to choose a black and white portrait that we would base our picture on.

I choose Diane Arbus as my inspiration for the shoot. I like how she shows a lot in frame and how these wide shots of people tell so much about who they are.

'Jane Jacobs with her son, Ned'

This is my picture where I try to use Arbus's style to fill the frame with information.

'Two sisters in East London'

If you want to see it in a larger version, click here

The two women are sisters. They grew up in East-London and have lived there all their lives. For the last 50 years they have been living next to each other. They are in their 80s.

The Outsiders // Diane Arbus

2009-04-18T15:16:00.002+01:00

Diane Arbus, 1923-71, is also famous for her pictures of people.
In America in the 1960' she took pictures of the outsiders of society, freaks, waifs, transvestites, nudists, identical twins and stripteasers.
She tried to document the aspects of society that many people overlook.

'Child with toy hand grenade' ©Diane Arbus

She had a her own personal problems and in her pictures she reveals much of her own troubled personality.

D.Arbus: 'A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.'(Rothstein Doc.Photo.)

She was critizied for exploiting the people she photographed.
'Matt' writes in his blog that the critics accused Arbus of exploiting outcasts and those on the fringe; they claimed that she depicted others as 'Others' from her own privileged perspective on the inside. They claim that her photographs do not ennoble their subjects, that they posit freaks only as freaks.

I think this is to underestimate the viewer of the photographs. Diane Arbus is caturing the people of her time, people that have been hiding in the dark, and it does not feel as if she wants to show their freakish side. She want's to show their humanity. I think she felt very close to them. She came from a wealthy New York background, but didn't fit in. Maybe she felt like she fit in more with them?
What is most important in this Arbus argument, as 'Matt' states in his blog, is that - Ultimately the artist doesn't get to choose how the work of art will be decoded.

In this article about The Wade Twins in the picture above, the parents of the twins comment on the photo, saying how the picture doesn't look anything like their other photos of their girls. That Arbus made them look 'ghostly'.
Maybe Diane Arbus wanted them to look different? Maybe she felt different and 'like a freak' and therefor wanted her objects to be portrayed in that feeling.
But still I believe this is for us to interpret, and that she most of all wanted to portray the American society.

Arbus wouldn't cut it today
'Mario' in his blog, thinks Diane Arbus is a photographer of her time and today she would't stand out- I understand that statement, but to me she is amazing especially because she took the photos in 'her time', in the 60's. She pushed limits in a time when that was a big chance to take and I admire her for that.

American Depression // Dorothea Lange

2009-04-18T15:15:00.003+01:00

Dorothea Lange' s picture from the American Depression with a mother and her three children has become a symbol of that time in American history.

'Migrant Mother' California 1936

The Farm Security Administration had a photography program from 1935-1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the life of the poor farmer. The Information Division of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under Roy Stryker, the Information Division of the FSA adopted a goal of "introducing America to Americans." Together with Walker Evans and Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange became one of the famous Depression-era photographers.

Propaganda
What one might not know is that these photographers were commisioned by FSA to not just document the life of the farmer, but to take propaganda photographs to ease the effects of the depression in the rural America.

The photo historian, James Curtis, comments

"Since these photographs were taken at the behest of the government, in order to support Government relief efforts, there's an obvious strategy involved to portray the Government in a very positive light. Not only the Government, more important than the Government, were the recipients of relief, so the most famous examples occur with the idealisation of the 'Dustbowl' refugees, for example, in the photography of Dorothea Lange. In the six photographs of the series, she proceeds to reduce the size of the family which is identified in her captions as seven people down to three young children, one of whom is an infant and thereby the family suddenly conforms to middle class standards on family size." (BBC Genius of Photography)

© Dorothea Lange

Is it a true documentary portrayal?
This is an important issue within documentary photography - is what we see a true portray of the situation or the people? What is left outside the frame? How much is the photographer allowed to 'choose' what we can see before the 'documentary' value is gone?

The study of people - Typology // August Sander

2009-04-18T15:15:00.002+01:00

As the documentary photographers are caturing different decades and centuries, they capture the social state of the places and people they photograph.

August Sander, was a german photographer, that wanted to show the people of his time in his home country. In 1910 he started an ambitious program to photograph representative people of Germany from all classes and occupations. The project was called 'Man in the Twentieth Century'.

Sander produced a collective portrait consisting of 40 000 negatives showing the personalities of his subjects without being artificial in a direct, straightforward manner (Rothstein -Doc.Photo).

Some might call Sander a collector of people like an endomologist collects butterflies to watch. Still i think he wanted to show the true Germany, and the chaotic conditions of Germany in the 1920's with hyperinflation, mass unemployment and political violence. All these people had to live through that time, and he wanted to show how that was like.

Pictures taken from the collection of Sanders pictures on artphotogallery.org

'He shows you so much about how these people want to be seen, and at the same time so little about what actually is going on inside their minds, and yet it is full of implications, it is full of hints - of things that cannot be spoken of.'

Leo Rubinfien ,photographer (BBC Genius of Photography)

The portraits of people tell the stories of the time, and are important to document our history.

War Photography // Robert Capa

2009-04-18T12:18:00.004+01:00

An important aspect of documentary photography is the documenting of war.

Robert Capa became famous when he captured the ultimate in decisive moments - the death of a Spanish Civil War soldier cut down by a bullet in 1936.

'The fallen soldier'

When Civil War became World War, in 1939, Capa brought fame, heroism, and charisma to the war photographer. Working for Life Magazine he recorded that the first rule of photojournalism was 'to get close' and the second, 'to get closer.' It earned him a reputation as the world's greatest war photographer and its first real celebrity.
(BBC genius of photography)

Many has wondered if this picture is actually true or not - weither the soldier is dying in the moment the photograph is taken ?

Richard Whelan, , has written an essay claiming to prove that the
'Falling soldier' picture is true

World War II
When soldiers of the 16th Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division landed at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, photographer Robert Capa , in the employ of LIFE magazine, was among them.

© Robert Capa, fair use under United States copyright law

The Decisive Moment // Cartier-Bresson

2009-04-18T12:17:00.004+01:00

As I will show and talk about the works of some of the greatest documentary photographers of time, I guess I might repeat myself when saying how big of a genius they are. But usually it is true, and the french photographer, Henri Cartier Bresson 1908-2004, is maybe one of the best. He was the master of what is called 'the decisive moment'.

He said, We are passive onlookers in a world that moves perpetually. Our only moment of creation is that 1/125 of a second when the shutter clicks, the signal is given, a motion is stopped.....

He was one of the first photographers to use the 35 mm camera and this gave him the freedom of mobility.

'Behind Saint-Lazare Station, Paris, France, 1932'
© Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photo

This picture is one of the most brilliant examples of 'the decisive moment'. Cartier-Bresson captured the inch of a second where this man jumps from the latter over the pond of water.In the background you can see a poster with a figure of a man in the same type of position as the actual man jumping. On the poster in the background you can see the name "Railowsky". This name is a play with words linking the railstation in the background and the latter in the water that looks like a train rail.

This picture is just such a perfect moment captured, it makes it hard to believe it is not staged. But Cartier-Bresson never edited or cropped his images, he wanted the viewer to see the whole picture.
The photograph is also a very important portray of its time, the man jumping and taking a leap being a symbol of taking a chance in the hard time of the 30's.

Picture taken from this flikr site about Cartier-Bresson Some say he was the father of modern photojournalism.

Here is an documentary including interviews with Cartier Bresson made by the interviewer and journalist Charlie Rose

// What is Documentary Photography?

2009-04-18T11:07:00.000+01:00

Documentary Photographers are our eyewitnesses with their observations of the world and its people. They use their knowledge, skills and trained eye to see the hidden messages in our societies and captures the moments of time for all of us to see, now and in the future.

Documentary Photography has many definitions//

//Profotos says that Documentary Photography is taking photographs to provide a record of social and political situations with the aim of conveying information.

//The photography grad student Jenny Ackerman at Ohio University has her own definition of this style of photography.

//Karin Becker Orn, Professor at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden :

’ The cluster of characteristics defining the documentary style incorporates all aspects of the making and use of photographs. Although not rigid, these characteristics serve as referents for comparing photographers work within... the documentary tradition – a tradition that includes aspects of journalism, art, education, sociology and history. Primarily, documentary was thought of as having a goal beyond the production of fine art. The photographer’s goal was to bring the attention of an audience to the subject of his or her work and, in many cases, to pave the way for social change.’

in 'Photography – a critical introduction'

Even though photography was invented a century earlier, it was in the 20th century that documentary photographers were to realize their creative potential of their medium and to achieve full recognition as artists.

In this blog I will try to reflect and portray the works of Documentary Photographers that have reported on the world and done so in the finest ways.