Surveyors and surveyed was really informational without being boring, which combined to make it a really good read and perfect for its purpose of informing the origins, uses, pros and cons of photography. Travel, war, documentation of and exposure of street life were the main focuses. The description of photography’s purpose in war was very honest, which was a nice change from the usual review; the comments about the importance (documenting the horrors of war) and usefulness of photography was expected, but the side note about the unfortunate ineffectiveness was surprising. The bit mentioned that very little could actually display the horrors of war on its own. (73-74)
There was an indirect correlation from the aforementioned note to, much later in the text, the note about documentary photographs rarely being “single, independent images.” (99) I agreed with this point, without having realized this point before. The other idea that I agreed with was something I had already thought about, which is the “rare phenomenon” of a genuinely interested and committed photojournalist, which resulted in quality investigations. (77)
The next part of the writing was mainly an attempt to begin defining documentary photography. This part, however, led me to my first strong disagreement with the piece. Whereas the text says it is hard to tell the difference from travel and war photography to documentary photography, it is my contention that travel and war photography are the purest examples of documentary photography. (74) This disagreement is followed up by the text’s statement from William Stott that “the heart of documentary is not form or style or medium, but always content.” (90) I do agree that content comes first, but aren’t style, form, and medium variables for the content conveyed? I feel that the artistic aspects of documentary is as influential as the content, because content can be manipulated, as much of the text tried to express.
M I K E Ysmith
I'll attach a picture over the weekend. I'm going home and there is a certain group of amateur documentary pictures from my grandfather.
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http://masters-of-photography.com/S/smith/smith_burial_at_sea.html ...This isn't the original picture that I wanted to put up, but it will do.
The original picture I wanted was a picture that my grandfather took when he was overseas in WWII, and the locals denied the events occuring, so he and the other the soldiers took pictures of the mass graves to prove it.
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