DAVID CAMPBELL - LECTURE ON DOCUMENTARY
http://www.oca-student.com/node/94235
The David Campbell video can be seen
here..
This, well not video, it was to listen to David Campbell taking about documentary and narrative, photography and literature.
He spoke about photographer Tod Papageorge who was giving a speech and quoted the saying of
Robert Cappa .. If you pictures aren't good enough - then you are not close enough... his version was if
your pictures aren' good enough then you are not reading enough.
Reading - research - understanding. This is how things begin to link and relate to each other.
The most powerful of works which sustain over time is one that understands its own context.
Narrative is the relationship, the idea of a story, an idea of an event or issue.
The story develops over time .. in connection to an event etc.. its not automatic .. you make the story.
Alan Feldman, an american anthropologist, said the event is not what happens, the event is that what can be narrated.
There is a reality and truth.
You don't encounter an events in the world with their meaning formed .. an event is formed via narration.
We understand historical events not at the time - we didn't understand the were in the French Revolution, for example, until after the event and we talk about it now.
The holocaust also, wasn't known at the time, we talk about the holocaust now 20 years after. The stories are told by storey tellers.
If you understand how narrative works you can construct your image. Your process of telling your story. The subjects you have will have their own stories and so that will encroach on you story and may change it.
Narration has a series of different levels. You need an accumulation of evidence. It doesn't mean that anything goes. As an example ... you wouldn't portray JFK killing as a comedy... so there are limits to all stories.
Every narrative has guidelines, not set in stone, but you need ..
Construction, including some things and excluding others. When story telling you have to edit some of your information otherwise you would have too much information.
The point is to understand your limits... you need your own narrative construction.
Why is narrative so common? it is because people have always told stories, since time began ..
Narrative offers a sense of coherence and purpose. Real events have a coherence - start, middle and end. Even if imaginary, we desire a comprehensive story, although we know its not true.
Mediating our desire for completeness.
We need to understand limits linked to other things / themes / assumptions.
Storytelling relates to context, make inclusions and exclusions obvious.
In journalism generally there is a debate about the future of context. The structure of news has no context, its all quite immediate, in a 24hour period so there is no time or need to expand the story further, linking to other things.. could they change this ? ( its just a debate ).
Traditional Forms of Narrative
Conventional
Time - your story needs a sense of time - normally linear - Beginning, Middle and end.
non-linear is when time shifts about, this is also acceptable.
Characters - who drive the story forward. The arch of a story - when you follow a character.
Account of connected events.
Space
drama
Causality - how things came about.
Personification
This is not a template - understand these dimensions. Most important - individuals - relationship - context.
Example .. HIV aids - we don't encounter the pandemic of Aids, but you will meet people who may be effected by it, relatives, or medications, it could be an article re:fundraisers etc.. lots of areas are effected by HIV.
Unemployment - you don't see unemployment, but you do see people effected by it, those unemployed, poor areas, job seekers..
Moments of exposition ..
Conflict
Climax - clash
Resolution
Not every story has a resolution, get resolved. These are just guide lines, elements.
Key Moves.. Introduce a location.
Give the story a face.
Let the tell their own story
Contextually
Dramatic form
All channels to deliver a story.
The point of narrative is to convey information and break it down.
In the end the most important thing is that you covey 'your' message, tell the story you want to tell.
You need to have the story in you mind beforehand. There will be things along the way that will
change and the story will develop and you will have to move with it.
You will also have to plan - where you will take you pictures and what time, and why .. You need to prepare.
What is the issue that motivates you to go ?
Who are they ?
What events ?
What is the context ?
Ie: back to the Aids story .. firstly research everything you can .. decide what area you want to photograph. It may be the medical centre you want, staff and cures, or the Aids victims themselves. Plan all this in advance.
Power & Responsibilities
What work does the image do ?
Some photos can lead to changes, however sometimes the demands are too high stating that an image will change the world or stop a war. But they can effect peoples opinions which can eventually change things..
One example is of a zurich exhibition of the gold trade in eastern congo, when the company saw these images they stopped trading - this is a good example of change. This was one company changing a policy - not stopping a war.
You need to be realistic as to what you expect from you image, or images.
Responsibilities - photographer who had activist views, became an activist who took photographs.
Thought and research gives maximum outcome, if narrative and context are better understood.
