The Document

Documentary Practice

A photographer in a way is perpetuated peace. The images are not just documenting/recording, but an intervention in a human agenda.

Joseph Nicéphone Niépce (1826)

View from a window at La Gras. The ability to capture the world brings an element of responsibility to the photographer as they record reality. James Nachtwey says we don’t just need to record but we need to expose the world. ‘These events I have recorded should not be forgotten or repeated’/

Frances Frith (1857) ‘Entrance to the Great Temple’

A subjective western depiction of Africa.

William Edward Kilburn ‘The Great Chartist Meeting at the Common’ (1848)

Hallmark of neutrality- no-one looking at camera and a bird’s eye panorama. But because the photo is staged, it is not neutral.

Roger Fenton (1855) ‘Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death’

A romanticised scene of war.

Cartier- Bresson

Capture a split second that represents human condition. A ‘sound-byte’ of the situation. Aesthetics, such as the ballerina, are important.

Jacob Riis (1888) ‘Bandits Roost’ / ‘A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush)’

Photograph real life and squalor. Not real though- all people in the photo are looking at the camera; they are all aware of the camera. It is a construction, not a snapshot of slum life.

Lewis Thine: Russian Steel Workers- Homestead 1908, Child Labourers in glassworks, Indiana (1911).

FSA Photographers 1935-1944

Department of Farm, Security and Administration. Roy Striker was the director. The government had to try and sort out migration problems.

Photograph as both photo journalism and emotive lobbying tool. Photographers looking for a certain response. Photographs are invalid as records of history.

Margaret Bourke-White ‘Shore Coppers Home’ (1937)
• Elicit and emotional response
• Peasant, child and dog
• Consumer culture images as wallpaper

‘Migrant Mother’ Doretha Lange (1936)
Mimics a residential shot to give impression that the subject is thinking ahead.

FSA- for a government agency, not individual photographers. Although the archive photos are mostly neutral, they are rejected by the FSA. FSA don’t want the ‘real’ reality but they want to create an image of the reality they want to expose.

Walker Evans- Graveyard Houses & Steel Mill, Bethlehem Pennsylvania (1935)

Scientists used photographer as a means to document people. In this case, photography is hiding its real agenda. Images supposedly used for science but not really.

Cesore Lombroso ‘Portrait of Melancholy’ / ‘Portraits of Italian & German Criminals’ (1889)

Theory: If you collect several photos of criminals, it will create the perfect image of criminality and you can judge criminals by their looks.

Robert Capa 1945- Normandy Landings

Neutral because of the subject. Famous for a blur- did he do this purposely later?

Magnum Group

1947 founded Cartier-Bresson & Capa.

Ethos of documenting the world and its social problems as well as internationalism and mobility.

Roberta Capa- 1939 ‘The Falling Soldier’ 1936

Seems staged; could be fact but really?

Nick Ut (172) ‘Accidental Napalm Attack’
Don McCullin (1968) ‘Shell Shocked Soldier’

Don McCullin was banned from going to the Falklands during the war because he would have produced negative images.

Robert Hoeberle (1969)

Took pictures of people about to be shot because he had given up trying to stop it/accepted he was part of the machine.

William Klein, St. Patrick’s Day Fifth Avenue (1955)

He accepts the photography is always somewhat staged, so he makes it explicit rather than trying to hide it and keep it a secret.

Bernd and Hilda Beeher

To try and remove subjectivity/aesethetics, they set rules on how to take pictures so they are netural and just record.

Conceptual Art

Richard Long (1981) A long line and tracks in Bolivia, tries to make art that can’t be bought or sold by trying to make a point- not trying to be bought and commissioned in galleries.

Bertol Brecht (1931): ‘You can’t capture reality’.

Allan Sekula- Fish Story. Lukacs ‘Theory of Novel’.

Narration vs. Description

In this book, there are essays and images- not just photos. It tries to represent reality as widely and neutrally as possible.

Andreas Gursky (1999) ’99 cent’
Jeff Wall (1992) ‘Dead Troops Talk’
Gillian Wearing (1992-1993) ‘Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say’

Jeremy Deller ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ (2001) Miners Strike.

Recreate/reconstruction of a scene. Channel 4/UK Art Angel with director Mike Figgis.

John Harris

Everyone has cameras now- we are all powerful. No need for Magmum- there is a reversal of power.