The Photograph as Document

The Photograph as a Document

Associate document photography as a type of truth. An contains an element of constructs

William Edward Kilburn - The great chartist meeting at the common.

The chartists were an early trade union movement, and they are attempting to reinforce the laws. He is recording an event her and people power. The use of the camera is a way of previledging the audience. Hes an observer in this image, and a third wall as he is not commenting and he is just taking the views of the union in. 

Grahame Clarke

This photo ignores the social background against which the was taken. This reinforces the photograph shown above and what grahame is asking us to look at and the photographers background is always there but there is no neutral recording.

Jacob Riss 1890 - How the other half live.

Bandit's Roost

This is a fairly wealthy and middle class gentlemen who makes money from the documentary by doing lectures of the event. The people that he is photographing he is photographing people that cants afford the camera to take pictures of there own. They are been told what to think by the person who is capturing these conditions. The air of menace is men hanging around either side of the street, and moving towards a life of crime is moving towards in this image. The figures are standing are the interest in what Riss is doing with the camera as its a significance piece of technology as they probably haven't seen befrore, which ma be due to the presence on the street. this is seems to be an observed moments as an hanging out pose but maybe due to his presense.

A Growler Gang in Session

This is an image been constructed of street arabs which is young youths of the time. He gets the children to rein-acts the children then pays them in cigarettes therefore nothing documented in this and purely constructed.

Lewis Hines - Russian Steel Workers

This is a portrait and there is a respect to them give to as people. They are people who we feel have a presence as there is eye contact and connection of them as the content and us as the viewer. 

Duffer Boy 1909

Working on a loom, but Hine never manages to exploit the people that he photographs his image stand for themselves. He doesn't attempt to shock the view as he just reports the conditions.

Farm Security Administation.

This is a way of increasing public awareness of migrant workers. 

Margeret Bourke-White - Sharecroppers Home

The text is here to confirm the truth of the images. This is the truth as the images are not seen as subjective and trusted to be objective. Sharecroppers home is a temporary construction for people to live in and here its lined with newspaper and therefore a practically use of materials and may even be the papers that would hold this photo been taken. She uses this to make a dark constrast she is contrasting the more privileged world and the world that this boy is part off this is not subjective and using it to document the deprivation. 

Russel Lee - Interior of a farmers house

This is a contrast of the following image. This is a creative objectivity. This is a press photography and less composition its on a angle and there less thought about the position. Less of the pathos of using a child in baggy clothes etc... This shows there is a way of representing a event with using a manipulation of the subject.

Dorothea Lange - Migrant Mother

This is using manipulation of the viewer. She describes her process as she seen the deprived mother and she asked if she could photograph and the woman didn't ask any questions. She doesn't ask anything about her she saw a photo opportunity and she takes it. The image becomes more important than the poverty and the human aspect of the situation. This has a classic Madonna and child situation. We reserve elevation of the religious status and her starving children.

Here we have the other images that Dorothy Lange took and was not chosen for publication. We receive more information about the shelter the children are living in. These are the images that better describe the social situation. The other is more artist rather than these which show the real conditions.

Walker Evans - Floyd Burroughs

What we can see here in this image is the conference of art & status, with the black edges therefore a 5 4 image and there has been no cropping and this is part of the modernist approach and pure & straight photography as there shouldn't be any editing or manipulation done therefore not adjusting the truth. F.S.A say its almost makes poverty look beautiful. 

Objectification of the poor. Showing families and individuals in an aesthetically pleasing way. This is the idea of truthful and constructed but actually what is brought back from the field is something of a convention.

Bill Brandt - Northern at his evening meal

He is looking at it as an outsider as he is not from that world. Here he is photographing a minor at his evening meal. This is not just a document as every object in the image is made significant and has symbolism such as the hanging items on wall is showing a cramp condition. This is am museum feel and so you say thank god this is not me, the construction of this is northerness as its a clique of them.

Robert Frank - Parade

He is an outsider looking at the nation. He is privately funded therefore not funding the project himself and therefore has more freedom and expression which is more like an art project. This is an image of a parade in New Jersey, he has used the caption to contradict the image as he doesn't show us the actual parade as we know what a parade is. Showing us the people looking from there houses as this is a reflection of what he is doing. Both of the faces are covered which is an unusual document of photography and therefore redefining the genre. He is redefining what it is like to me American. 

William Klien - St Partricks Day

Photographing the Irish community and he is very up close with the celebrations, there is an acknowledgement of the photographer is there. The boy in the top left corner is showing his presence. 

Dance in Brooklyn

He is well know for his blur and graininess. This is a good example as the little boy's hand is blurring in front of his face. He captures this movement of the city and uses blurring and grain to do so. This attempt to redefine the traditional photography.

Magnum Group

This is a group f photographers who's mission is document the world and its social problems. The international mobility as there is more movement between continent and countries.

Henri Cartier Bresson - Magnum

This is the use of the camera been taking photos without them knowing. Rather than having a huge press camera there is an almost hidden camera. They seem to be looking through some kind of screen. 

The Decisive Moment

“photography achieves its highest distinction – reflecting the universality of the human condition in a never-to-be-retrieved fraction of a second” »(Cartier-Bresson)

The decisive moment is when you press the shutter click which is a decision which reflects the photographer therefore saying the photographers identity is throughout the click and moment they take. 

France

He sees the world as a stage and he is there waiting for all the moments to capture and he works with no editing to photos. The camera is used for its specific qualities.

Robert Capa - The Falling Soldier

This is an image much discussed as originally recognised as the moment of the soldiers death been captured on film. 

Normandy 

His blur his is replicating that he is in the water and that he is one of the soldiers he has used this technique to imply his presence in the water.

George Rodger - Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp

This is the liberation of the concentration camp the way he has photographed the bodies here this is a good distance to respect the bodies and not capturing the goriness, He shows us the horror of the situation and there is no exploitation of the bodies.

Hung Cong Ut - Accidental Napalm

This is representing the moral conundrum of the do you capture the image or help? This is the real effects of the so called accident. When an image is as real as it is we end up discussing the documented role to document or is the documentors roles to intervene.

 

Robert Haeberle - People about to be Shot

This is an image taking during the massacre. What he does i order to gain the image, he shouts hold it before they shoot. He shoots before they kill. He is almost implicit in the image himself. He ways of capturing that image overrides all human actions.

Don McCulling - Shell Shocked Soldier

We are seeing the trauma of the soldier, we are seeing McCullings expression as he is so shell shocked himself of his experience of the unpredictable events. Therefore over exposed to the horror.

Documentary Exhausted

        To speak of documentary photography at this point in it’s history) is to run headlong into a morass of contradiction , confusion and ambiguity, a position made more problematic by the way in which the increasing sophistication of visual technology makes it difficult to know what is ‘real’ and and what has been ‘faked’.

 

As we get into postmodernism what we see is the impossibility of subjective photography. 

William Neidich 

He is photographing something that would have bee impossible to photograph. We would have never had evidence of at the time therefore obviously fake. This is an attempt of rewriting American History. He uses 19th century processes to produce a set of images like this. 

Edward Curtis

Sepia toning fairly soft focus and a way of romanticising the way of normal life. He was documenting the disappearing of the native tribal Americans. He is inventing that missing history. He is documenting his travel and therefore a cliqued image of the noble savage that the native American Indians as the is reflecting the truth of there identity, minus the violence. 

Bruno Barbey - Left wing riot protesting the building of the new Narito airport.

He is really playing on the use of flags on the left and the white helmets against the black shields on the right.

Jeremy Deller - The battle of Ogreave

The minors strike in 1984, he recreated it in 2001, he asked people who originally took part in this battle when it originally happened. Deller attempts to recreate the acknowledging all view points and also gets police to join in. Rewriting history for therapeutic reasons as acknowledges some of the voice that was not heard before.

She photographs war but in a different way of dramatic and constructed narrative. She is interested in the scars and traces of war, she photographs the impact of war without representing one political view or the other. Gives us the size of the bomb and the construction of the bomb in the landscape, therefore disrupting the enemy. Her scars are often scars within the landscape although she likes scars on the body. This is the impossibility of a true representation of the documentation of the photograph.