William
Edward Kilburn 'The Great Chartist Meeting At The Common' 1848
• Camera used in a documentary way
• Early trade union movement
• People here are protesting about the
conditions in the Victorian era
• Recording an important historical event
• Recording a type of people power
• Photographer is an invisible observer in
this image
• He is standing at the back of the crowd
• He is therefore not acknowledged by the
people
• He is a third wall
• Objectively recording
Grahame
Clarke
• In many contexts the notion of a literal
and objective record of 'history' is a limited illusion. It ignores the entire
cultural and social background against which the image was taken, just as it
renders the photographer neutral, passive and invisible...
"How The
Other Half Live" Jacob Riis, 1890
• His purpose is essentially a push for
social reform
• He is a wealthy, fairly educated, middle
class man
• Access to the technology that the people
who he is photographing don't have access to
• Setting up a large plate camera in the
street which is essentially their home
• The presence of the people on the street
is more to do with the interest of what is going on
• These people were caught in this
'hanging out' pose but at the same time reacting to his presence
A Growler
Gang in Session, 1887
• Riis is trying to expose this idea that
working class people would have a tendency to crime
• He is implying that he is robbish a lush
• He got the children to reenact the
situation that we see here
• It is purely constructed and gave them
cigarettes as a reward
Lewis Hine,
Russian steel workers, Homestead, Pa, 1908
• Photographing Russian steel workers
• There is a respect given to them as
people and they are not just immigrants representing a larger group
• There is a relation between us and the
subject
Duffer boy,
1909
• Hine never exploits the people he is
photographing
• He doesn't attempt to shock them he
really reports the conditions
F.S.A (Farm
Security Administration)
• Creating as part of the new deal
Margaret
Bourke-White 'Sharecroppers Home' 1937
• The images are not seen as subjective in
any way they are trusted to be objective
• Photogtaphing a young man in a
sharecroppers home
• Shack is constructed and lined with
newspaper and magazine cuttings
• Practical use of materials
• She is contrasting the wealthier world
with the young boy
• The newspapers represent the American
Dream
Russel Lee
'Interior Of A Black Farmers House' 1939
• There is a less artistic use of
composition
• There is no human presence in the image
• Magazines and newspapers on the wall
Dorothea
Lange 'Migrant Mother' 1936
• Famous image of huge debate
• 'I saw and approached the hungry and
desperate mother...'
• Speaking in retrospect about her work
• In doing so she describes her treatment
of the woman almost like an object
• There is a situation where the image
becomes everything
Walker
Evans 'Graveyard, Houses & Steel Mill, Bethlehem'
Bill
Brandt 'Northumberland Mier at His Evening Meal' 1937
• He is making significant all of the
images in the photograph
• There is nothing neutral about the
inclusion of the objects
• Making of ordinary lives into a museum
culture
• Something to look at and be thankful
that it is not our way of living
• A construction of the working class
Magnum Group
• Founded in 1947 by Cartier-Bresson and
Capa
• Small portable camera which has been
used without being noticed
• This allows the street photographer or
the reporter to make documents unseen
Henri
Cartier, Bresson
• Reflection in the water and a shadow in
the background
• Almost sees the world like a kind of
stage
• He is there waiting for all of the
moments in the story for him to strike and capture that moment
Documentary
in war
• Robert Capa 'The Falling Soldier' 1936
• Image that is much discussed as it was
originally recognised as the moment of the soldiers death captured on film
• It has since been disputed
George Rodger
'Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp' 1945
• The way that he has photographed the
bodies retains a respectful distance from the subject
• He could have easily done close up shots
of the bodies but hasn't done
Hung Cong Ut
1972
• Anti war statement
• Expresses the real effects of the
accident
• When an image like this becomes as
iconic as it is it kind of transforms it and we end up discussing it in a way
that is about the relation of the photographer to the subject
• Is the photographers role to intervene?
Robert
Haeberle 'People About to be Shot' 1969
• The photographer is witness to the
people about to be shot
• He shouts 'hold it' before the actual
shooting occurs
• So that effectively the photographer
shoots first
• The picture and the desire to gather the
information overrides any human response to the work
• This is where documentary starts to
exhaust itself
Don McCullin
'Shell Shocked Soldier' 1968
• We are seeing his own trauma
• He is so traumatised himself by the
experience that he retreats to idealised landscapes
• As we get documentary switching we are
almost exhausted
• Perhaps we are experiencing the point
where we get to a lack of sympathy or identification because we are overexposed
to the horror