Part Three: Documentary

An introduction to documentary photography.

Documentary photography is a way of recording events, going out, looking at the world and responding to it and often has more of a snapshot aesthetic, caused by the "decisive moment" in which a photographer acts. This is a phrase closely related to Henri Cartier-Bresson who said,
"Photography is not like painting, there is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers to you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative".

This is demonstrated in the photograph on the right, if it had been taken a fraction of second later, there would be movement in the water which would draw your attention to it and obscure the reflection, thus destroying the impressive parallels between the reflection in the foreground and the pose of the sign in the background as well as the horizontal lines that lead your eye to the figure in the background.

The context of photographers work is important for making certain connections and parallels, understanding why they produce the work that they do and making connections to other things occurring in the world around.

Jacob Riis wrote his book "How the Other Half Lives" in 1890, at a time when the plight of the poor was becoming apparent to middle and upper classes due to publications such as "Lights and Shadows of the Great City" by James D. McCabe. His book was successful partly due to this, but also his reputation as an investigative journalist paired with the factual data and solutions he gave for New York City's problems as well as the engravings of his photographs which enabled people to better understand these issues. This is an example of the relevance of the emerging printing and eventual mass production of printed images to people at the time.

August Sander's individual and artistic approach was what granted him an outstanding position in international documentary photography, although his selection of people was mainly influenced by personal meetings, therefore not entirely representative. However, his portraits are still highly accurate reflections of their time. His portraits were set in a simple environment but Sander gave a controlled hint at the subject's background or profession through their clothes, hairstyles or gestures. His strict documentation of his view of man gives us a view of the German society during his lifetime (1876-1964).

There is an element of subjectivity brought to to photography when people go out with the aim to take objective photos in situations where you feel any emotion or empathy for people, as the emotions of the photographer will influence they way they choose to frame their photographs, what they decide to show, and what they choose to leave out. These choices made, sometimes unconsciously by the photographer can often determine the way people will look at the images and how they feel towards them.

For example, Walker Evans was a photographer worked as a member of the "historical unit" of the FSA(Farm Security Administrations) and it was his assignment to provide a photographic survey of rural America, primarily in the south. What made his work new was the kind of facts he chose to present through his photography, scenarios that had never been seen before by a vast majority of people.

How we look at these "old" photographers work may be different to how they looked at it as our perceptions of the images differ, for instance the modern eye has a tendency to romanticise black and white images which causes our view of the photographs to be more superficial. This is because as a society, we are conditioned to accept photos and move on, being exposed to images of extreme poverty and illness as well as immense wealth. This means that the photos we look at, the ones that should have an impact on us and make us think, are only emotive for minutes perhaps, or as little as just a few seconds. In a world with so much information we have to filter out what is personally important and during this process, many deep meanings to photographs are lost.

Martin Parr.

Inspiration and influences

Whilst it's true that Bill Brandt and Henri Cartier-Bresson were both a substantial examples for Martin Parr in his early days of working with photography, he himself has said "it was while I was at college that Bill Jay came round and showed the work of Tony Ray-Jones and this for me was a real moment of inspiration."

It's easy to see the strong influence that Tony Ray-Jones had on Martin Parr when you look at their photographs side by side and see the intense amount of collective absurdity as well as the desire to document the English way of life.

I had an idea that I wanted to get a set of photographs of plants in obscure places when I realised how many plants there were around my house. As most of the plants are situated on windowsills it makes photographing them difficult but I like that they are almost silhouettes. Unfortunately I couldn't change my aperture settings as my lovely camera had broken (RIP). The plants were put around the house by my mum and for the most part, the rest of the family ignore them.

This photo clearly doesn't fit with what I was trying to achieve with the other set but I really like it as a stand alone image. It was taken through the doorway of my brother's bedroom and I find the parallels within it amusing (e.g. the skull and cross bones reflects the "toxic" and "hazardous" nature of his room, the word "RISE" on the poster is next to not one, but two ladders and the mask echoes what I think is a pumpkin stencil on the wall).

Field studies-old people

I was set the task of going out over the half term and photographing residents in old people's homes, contacting them and arranging the visit myself. However, I emailed Sunrise senior living at Southbourne with a very polite proposal of my visit and was met with this response:

Not a particularly fruitful first try.

(After several similar replies from other similar institutions) I asked my Granny if she had any friends in residential homes, hoping to go and photograph them and their friends on a private visit, but unfortunately she didn't. I then proceeded to take photographs of my Granny in her home (not a home but at least it was something). Here are the results: