http://www.oca-student.com/resource-type/makingsense
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but you need to know how to analyse the picture to gain any understanding of it at all.
I must admit I have always been taken in by documentary photographs and until now not questioned whether they were genuine or not. I shall look at them in a whole new light now.
Historians had regarded photographs as a critical form of evidence, mirroring past events - a photograph being a mechanical reproduction of reality.
Photograph images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it.
When we see an historical image we tend to accept it as factually correct. We don't question it.
America's first photographic image, in 1839, was a mirror like object called a Daguerreotype. It was a complicated process and very time consuming. (30 mins ). So for these photographs which we view as snapshots, the people would have had to sit motionless for several minutes otherwise the photos would have been blurred. So this is confirmation that even the very first pictures would have been contrived in some way.
There were many experiments to improve the photographic process. As documentary developed the photographers were still classed as recorders, skilled technicians - but not artists, they were fact gatherers.
Mathew Brady wanted to capture images of the civil war, but because of long exposure times resorted to taking photos of bloated dead bodies after the action had passed. Another photographer Alexander Gardner even dragged a body 40 yards to set up a photo shoot. The resulting picture - Rebel Sharpshooter in Devils Den, has and continues to command attention even though it has now been discovered that the body had been moved to set the shot up.
William Henry Jackson, Mt of the Holy Cross, 1873... Jackson had to wait to the spring to take his bulky equipment to a vantage point across the mountain but to his dismay he discovered that one arm of the fabled cross of snow had melted. It was later 'restored' in his Denver darkroom !
Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine took up the effort to explore the wilderness of the inner city and used Documentary photography as a tool of social reform. Riis and Hine shocked their contemporaries with dramatic images showing the human consequences of unchecked urban growth and industrial excesses.
Before the turn of the twentieth century pictures of working and poor people were limited to the studios.
If we are to determine the meaning of a documentary photograph we must begin by establishing the historical context for both the image and its creator. Documentarians such as Mathew Brady and Dorothea Lange succeeded because they understood the desires of their audiences and did not shy from moulding their image accordingly. Documentary photographers are active agents searching for the most effective way of communicating their views.
Examples of adjusted images ..
Riis - Bandit's Roost - 1888, is an alley off Mulberry Street, New Yorks Chinatown, Riss argued the alley was a breeding ground for disorder and criminal behaviour. Two men seem to guard the alley entrance, but what of the women and children would they be hanging around if there were any danger.
Again they would have had to wait for the long exposure and would a criminal gang be prepared to do that or want there picture taken in the first place. There is even washing hanging to dry - maybe they are not so bad.
In another picture - A Growler Gang in Session, 1887, the boys were set up to mug one of the others, and then Riis paid them with cigarettes. Another 'Street Arabs in Sleeping Quarters' it looks like they are pretending to be asleep and its also happens to be daylight. But no one questions it.
Riis - FIve Cents Lodging, 1889 - This was made to look like he had crept in and taken the shot whilst they slept, being awoken by the flash. However they had to pose with their faces towards the camera and hold whilst he ignited the flash powder and made the exposure. So again, intervention.
Another Walker Evans had a bulky camera and had to fix it to a tripod. His Barbershop image was praised for its clarity and precision, it seems a candid unposed image. Looking further these men appear in a selection of five images so all were set up and also he would have had to stop any passing traffic or his image would have been ruined.
Documentary photographers rarely take one picture, they take a selection and select the best one.
Russell Lee - Christmas Dinner in Iowa ( 1936 ) - Lee took a series of pictures of a tenant farmer struggling to make a living. The photograph showed his children standing at the table eating a meager Christmas dinner, no parents with them. It showed Pauly to be a widower doing his best for the children. Making a powerful portrait. However, it has since been discovered another picture with Paulys wife standing in the doorway with two of the children. !! Her presence in the other picture would have changed it completely.
Photographers could add material afterwards, ie, text or titles. directing the viewers gaze.
Riis and Hine placed great faith in the power of accompanying words to drive home the point of their images.
One of these was One Arm and Four Children, 1910, which illustrated industrial accidents, and the head of the household unable to work.
By contrast, Walker Evans refused to title his photographs. But he was known to move items in a said set up to tell the story better. Taking things out, putting in a butter churn, leaving clues to help you read the story of how he wanted it told.
Russell Lee took a selection of Mexican Households. But again it looks like he gains the cooperation of the subjects. Its a family, shown to be without a mother but the little girl is dressed in a way that is quite feminine maybe dad wouldn't put a bow in her hair. ?!
Also he tries to show a boy poorly from the conditions and drinking something, contaminated supplies, but this boy appears well in another shot. He doesn't show anything at its best.
Ironically this factual finding was not a prelude to a call for help for Mexicans but a dramatic statement that if white Texans did not receive federal assistance they would end up in a primitive condition akin to thier Mexican neighbours.
So even these photographs that we trusted to be genuine have slight interventions. I feel they can be forgiven in those early days because the cameras they were working with had so many restrictions and they would have had to tell their subjects to be very still, if that were all and if they hadn't the pictures would be blurred and they would have no picture a all.
But maybe its us that haven't changed over the years, always wanting our perfect picture, and setting things up to suit. I always remember a picture which had won a competition, black and red phone boxes and then colour co-ordinated people walking in opposite directions complete with correct colour umbrellas. At the time I thought - I would never have my camera with me when /if i saw such a sight.
I did then begin to think that it had to be contrived but it was good enough to get away with it. I think thats where I might b going wrong, awaiting the perfect moment. But when then perfect moment does happen it cant be beaten - I love a natural image that has no intervention at all.
Visit the FSA online Gallery on the Library of congress website...
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/
