Documentary photography

The appearance of documentary photography is usually associated with the invention of the photographic process: in the 19th century it was widely believed that the photograph was documentary in nature. The appearance of photodocumentation is correlated with the names of Niepce , Daguerre and Talbot, believing that the idea of ​​depicting the surrounding world can be correlated with the principle of documentary. As a form of appeal to the events of everyday life, documentary photography appears in the middle of the 19th century. The most famous example of early documentary photography is the photographs of Charles Negre ^[3] taken on the streets of Paris in the 1850s ^[4] .

The development of documentary photography of the 19th century took place against the backdrop of several military conflicts - the Crimean War , the US Civil War , the Franco-Prussian War : photography became a way to create a picture of the war. One of the problems faced by photographers is the contradiction between documentary and artistic ^[5] . The true picture of hostilities did not correspond to the myth of the picturesque, majestic or exalted ^[5] . And vice versa - the deep tragic image of the war was often the result of not documentary, but staged shooting ^[6] . The photographers Matthew Brady , Timothy O'Sullivan and Roger Fenton faced this problem.

In the mid- 19th and early 20th centuries, the development of documentary photography was associated with social movements and was partly dictated by them. 19th century documentary photographs are albums and publications dedicated to the distressing life of city streets. This form of documentary photography includes, in particular, the work of Jacob Riis ^[7] , John Thomson ^[8] , and a little later - Lewis Hein , who depicted the catastrophic conditions of urban life and work. Jacob Riis was a photographer who actively advocated for social reform - photography became for him a tool for public appeal and a form of social criticism. His 1890 book talked about the life of New York slums and turned out to be an important phenomenon of not only the photographic, but also the social movement.

The first half of the 20th century marked an understanding of the social and critical purpose of photography.

In the first decades of the 20th century, documentary strategy was evaluated as part of a specific art program ^[5] . In part, this idea was implemented within the framework of the F / 64 Group and in the New Vision photography system ^[9] .

The consequences of the global economic crisis in the United States, puts the American government under the leadership of President Franklin Roosevelt in need of comprehensive social reforms, known in history as the New Roosevelt Deal . In this regard, one of the most important tasks of the government was the need to enlist the support of a wide mass of the US population for the implementation of the planned reform policy. In 1935, photographers receive orders from the resettlement administration (later renamed , FSA) to create large-scale photographic documentation of rural life in America. The task of the photographers was to adequately and aesthetically capture the impoverished villager of the United States, while avoiding artistry in their work. This new genre of photography has been called “documentary photography” ^[10] .

Early Documentary Photography in Germany

The most notable photographers of the first half of the 20th century include the German photographer August Zander . His work, People of the 20th Century, had an equal impact on both the art system and documentary photography in Europe. The works of August Zander combined elements of direct and staged photography, opening a new way of seeing in photography of the XX century. The works of August Zander are often the subject of research as an independent artistic precedent.

The end of World War II marked a difficult period in documentary photography. All significant post-war documentary photographers: Diana Arbus , Robert Frank , Eugene Smith , Mary Ellen Mark , William Klein either existed as loners or were forced to work as story providers for large illustrated magazines such as Life . Magazines are finding less and less room for documentary photography and authors with a politically independent position.

The requirements for materials in the media have changed: images should be relevant, vibrant and memorable. Publications of detailed stories, in turn, were supplanted by publications of a small volume with one or two photographs. Documentary photography has given way to photojournalism ^[11] , and photographs of documentary filmmakers can be seen more often in gallery space, in museums, in books and photo albums than in magazine publications.

The realization, especially during the Vietnam War, of the fact that political organizations are able to use photography as a weapon in pursuit of their tasks leads to a more complicated way of photography in print. The government directly intervenes in the editorial process of covering military conflicts, including the secondment of journalists to military units.

An important stage in documentary photography was the appearance in 1959 of Robert Frank’s book The Americans ^[12] , which, in turn, was an ideological continuation of the Walker Evans project, The American Photographs ^[13] . The Americans set a new standard for documentary photography - not so much critical as lyrical and poetic. The Americans were not associated with formal events, but with the consistent course of everyday life.

The New Documents exhibition, held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1967 and featuring photographs by Diana Arbus , Leah Friedlander and Harry Vinogrand, became a landmark project in the documentary photography system. New documents became a way of verifying the artistic status of documentary photography and played a decisive role in its dissemination as a sustainable genre. New documents positioning photography as a precedent for the social system and a form of social responsibility. At the same time, they summed up the peculiar result of fine documentary, becoming the final draft of classical documentary photography.

The beginning of the new millennium marks a turning point in relation to documentary photography. Museums and scientific institutions rethink and give new meaning to the documentary power of photographs and. In the summer of 2009, a documentary photography exhibition of the 1920s - 1930s was held at the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. Also in 2009, with the support of the photographer and curator and Jorge Ribalta, the Museum of Modern Art (Barcelona) hosted a retrospective exhibition of documentary photography of the 20th century “Universal Archive”. In 2010, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid hosted an international conference on documentary photography.

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz is one of the most famous modern young documentaries. The main theme of his work is the living conditions of people in developing countries. Rivera Ortiz grew up in rural poverty in Puerto Rico in the 1970s. He characterizes his research as a celebration of life (A Celebration of Life) in poverty.

In the 1970s and 1980s, documentary photography was the subject of consistent criticism. The two most famous precedents are the work of Susan Sontag and Alan Secula ^[14] . Both authors drew attention to the inevitable staging nature of documentary shots ^[15] , and also raised the issue of the ethical viability of documentary photography ^[16] . They noticed that documentary photography becomes a way of psychological pressure and speculation, is used as a tool of emotional manipulation, built on other people's suffering. The most famous episode is a criticism of the work of Sebastian Salgad , whom Susan Sontag actually accused of ethical speculation ^[17] . Critics of photographic documentary drew attention to the fact that documentary shots do not support the humanistic principle, violate it and lead to its destruction ^[6] . A negative assessment of documentary photography continued the tradition of criticizing the theater of violence, which had begun in Confession of Aurelius Augustine ^[5] .

• Group F / 64
• Documentary
• New vision
• Direct photo
• Timeline photography

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• Solomon-Godeau A. Wer spricht so? Einige Fragen zur Dokumentarfotografie // Herta Wolf (Hg.). Diskurse der Fotografie. Fotokritik am Ende des fotografischen Zeitalters. Frankfurt am Main, 2003, S. 53-74.
• Stott W. Documentary Expression and Thirties' America. New York: Oxford University Press , 1973. ISBN 9780226775593
• Stange M. Symbols of Ideal Life. New York and Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press , 1989.
• Starl T. Dokumentarische Fotografie // Hubertus Butin (Hg.). DuMonts Begriffslexikon zur zeitgenössischen Kunst, Köln 2002, S. 73-77.

• Coleman A. Documentary photography, photojournalism and press photography today , 2003 // At photographer.ru
• Documentary photo on the TATE Museum website
• The Documentary and Journalism // The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Vol. 55, No 3, Fall 2001