Developing Documentary Photography Projects - 12

week programme.

Session: 3

Tutors: Andrew Jackson and Dan Burwood

So what could your project be.....

Documentary Project

Work related

Friends /people who you meet

Hobbies

Local / National events

Personal concerns / point of view – dictate approach.

Keywords

Record your / thoughts &Findings

Angle, approach, bias

Recap...

Autographic vs. Photographic representation

Camera seen as an objective scientific tool

Uneven balance of power between those doing the looking and those

being looked at

Photography and the institution

Early conventions of documentary practice could describe its methodologies in 3 distinct ways:

• It was observational

• It was polemical – it constructs an argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine

• It was didactic - instructive, instructional, educational, informative – it told you how to see something

Documentary conventions operated as a deterministic practice – the photographer (author) believed that they could control what meanings you gained from the photograph. If they said it was about poverty – then it was about poverty.

.....It was always in black and white...at this point colour photography was seen as a barrier that got in the way of meaning.

Colour photography was seen as less serious and associated with amateurs – to be used for happy occasions

This would not seriously change – especially in Britain - until the 1980’s

Two important things happened in 1930’s America to make photography the most important – and potent - visual medium

The first was the Farm Security Administration....

The Farm Security Administration

Initially created as the Resettlement Administration (RA) in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort during the Depression to combat

American rural poverty.

It was headed up by Roy Stryker

In your own time on Youtube: Introducing America to Americans: Roy Stryker and the FSA

Photographs

Arthur Rothstein picture of a farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in

Cimarron County, 1936.

Allie Mae Burroughs by Walker Evans

Migrant Mother 1936 - Dorothea Lange

In your own time on Youtube:

•BBC News Walker Evans Celebrating American Photographs 75 years on

•Story of "Migrant Mother" Photograph by Dorothea Lange - American Artifacts

The second was the Life Magazine...it was purchased in 1936 by Time

founder Henry Luce and changed the direction of the magazine towards an

emphasis of photographs over text – up until this point publications had used photographs to accompany the text – Life Magazine saw photographs as

being more important.

...why was Life Magazine so important?

Margaret Bourke-White—Life Magazine

LIFE magazine, November Margaret Bourke White – 1st Life Cover - 1936

Ostranenie - estrangement

• The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. (Shklovsky, "Art as Technique", 12)

Roland Barthes...death of the author...

• In your own time on Youtube:

• 'The Death of the Author' Simplified (Roland Barthes)

Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955

William Douglas

Robert Frank U.S. 285, New Mexico 1956

Thomas Murphy

Political Rally, Chicago 1956

Civil War: “Harvest of Death”

William Klein: Broadway and 103rd Street New York 1954-55

Candy Store, Amsterdam Avenue New York 1954-55

William Klein: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Broadway 1954-55 St. Louis, MO - 1910 May 9

Children in Poverty, 1890

William KleinVitelloni, 29th Street and Second Avenue

1954-55

William Klein: Dance in Brooklyn 1955

• Iconic

• Indexical

William Klein: Gun 2, Little Italy 1955

Saul Leiter, Untitled, New York, 1960

Saul Leiter, Taxi, New York, 1957

SAUL LEITER

Foot on El, 1952

Diane Arbus

Bill Owens, Suburbia, 1973

Bill Owens, Suburbia, 1973

Robert Adams: what we bought,: the new world 1970-74

LARRY CLARK

Lawrence Donald "Larry" Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for the movie Kids and his photography book Tulsa. His most common subject is youth who casually engage in illegal drug use, underage sex and violence, and who are part of a subculture (such as surfing, punk rock or skateboarding).

William Eggleston, Memphis, 1969-71

William Eggleston, Memphis, 1969-71

William Eggleston, Memphis, 1969-71

Stephen Shore, Trail’s End Restaurant,Kanab, Utah, August 10, 1973

MARY ELLEN MARKMary Ellen Mark (born March 20, 1940) is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, her portraiture, and her advertising photography. She has had 16 collections of her work published and has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Paul Graham, waiting rooms, Poplar DHSS, 1985

Paul Graham, Horse Poster, DHSS Bristol 1984

Paul Graham, Interview cubicles, Hackney DHSS, 1985

MARTIN PARR

Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952 in Epsom, Surrey) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take a critical look at modern society, specifically consumerism, foreign travel and tourism, motoring, family and relationships, and food.

Nan Goldin

Lewis Baltz, Office Unoccupied, Mitsubishi, near Vitre, Bastogne 1989-92

RICHARD BILLINGHAM

Richard Billingham (born 25 September 1970) is an English photographer and artist who is best known for his book Ray's A Laugh which documents the life of his alcoholic father Ray and obese, heavily tattooed, mother Liz.

Alec Soth - Niagara

Bertien Van Manen

Her work is a study of photography and our relationship to it, it’s uses and the function it serves

in our lives.

Bertien van Manen has crossed a large part of the world for her previous works, and now she has extensively travelled for her new work: these are personal pictures and family portraits from all over the Europe, against an

intimate backdrop.

"This is a study of interior photography" Yuri Andrukhovych – --------------

'Bertien van Manen's photographs - rich, textured, from the hip - might be described as a sort of visual anthropology. But while that term gets at

what she does - immersing herself in the communities she photographs and investigating visual manifestations of culture, namely photography itself - it's too academic and fusty to describe how her pictures look. A

cross between Robert Frank and Nan Goldin with a little bit of Martin Parr, her pictures are deftly composed, with an intuitive sense of colour. At the

same time they can feel casual, and almost accidental. Which is, of course, entirely intentional...

'Give Me Your Image' begins a conversation, through photographs, about photographs and their role in our daily lives.' Jean Dijkstra, Art Review -

Sofia, 2004

Munich, 2004

Lewis Baltz, Air France Reservations,1989-92

Stuart Whipps, Ming Jue, Longbridge, North Works

Stuart Whipps, Ming Jue, Longbridge, Paint Shop 8

Stuart Whipps, Ming Jue, Longbridge, Health & Safety Centre

HARRY GRUYAERTHarry Gruyaert (born in Belgium in 1941) began his career as a Director of Photography in television production, but by the early 1970s he had moved over to still photography. He picked up editorial assignments from National Geographic, Fortune and Vogue, among others, and his total immersion in the colour and landscapes of Morocco earned him the 1976 Kodak Prize.

Angus Bolton: Soviet Legacy series

Uta Barth, Untitled, from .. and of time, 2000

Uta Barth, Untitled,

Uta Barth, Untitled,

Jason Oddy, Untitled, United Nations, New York, 2001

Untitled, Palace of the Nations, Geneva

Untitled. The Pentagon. Washington DC. USA 2003. Jason Oddy