Lecture 8: Chronologies 6: Photography

• Photography is a form of valuable documentation, a form of evidence to any sort of event.

• Functioning as an evidential role as it records a historical event, a very early image of a general strike, the photographer's position does not make himself clearly visible as he takes it from the back, simply being another man in the crowd.
• "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 recorder of the scene."~ Clarke: 1997:145 

• "How the Other Live" is a written and visual account/Study of the tenements of New York by Jacob Riss in 1890, revealing cultural ideologies of ethnicity, poverty and 'the other side'. Riss used this superficially as for tool for social reform, but made a lot of money lecturing to middle classes. 
• Photography used through educational means, the content is questionable as it all seems set up with all of the subjects bring so properly posed in the shot (They are clearly aware of the photographer's presence), it places the middle class in a negative light with the superficial air of menace displayed here. 

Jacob Riis, "A Growler Gana in Session (Robbing a Lush), 1887

•  It has been researched that the scene of this photo was actually staged, Riis paid the subjects with cigarettes (WHAT), making this non-documentary  

Lewis Hine, "Russian Steel Workers, Homestead", 1908 

• This one was less about propaganda and more about the human condition. In contrast to Riis' staged works, the immigrants here, despite still bring portrayed as poor, as show with steely dignity and honor. Hine describes himself to be a sociological photographer, and fortunately his work has brought about real changes in the law. 

Lewis Hine, "Duffer Boy", 1909

• Simply shows a subject at work, without making him a pitiful subject, never exploiting him. (You go Lewis!) 
• Farm Security Administration was created by Franklin Roosevelt to increase public awareness of the problems of migrants. 

Margeret Bourke-White, "Sharecroppers Home", 1937  

• Photos at the time would have been used for Life Magazines and such, the images told the story in companion with the text to double confirm the truth. 

Russel Lee "Interior of a Black Farmers House", 1939

• Shows a different perspective of the lifestyle, by not making the subject a victim of poverty, but people with deeper stories to them. 

Dorothea Lange, "Migrant Mother", 1936
"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, 
as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained
 my presence or my camera to her but I do remember her asking 
me no questions. I made 5 exposures, working closer and closer 
from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history…" 

• A classic convention of the Madonna and child, in a way a symbolic mother figure. Dorothea later reflects on this photo, seeing that gathering the image was more important than truly interacting with the subject herself 

Bill Brandt, "Northumberland Miner at His Evening Meal", 1937 

• An ordinary life that becomes part of museum culture, an image of the english class system, every aspect of the image has a larger meaning, that nothing is neutral. 

Post modern, the redefinition of documentary, radical, giving a more unique perspective of his subjects.

• The Magnum Group was founded in 1947 by Cartier-Bresoon and Capa, with ethos of documenting the world and its social problems. 

Hints of surrealism here.

• "Photography achieves its highest distinction - reflecting the universality of the human condition in a never-to-be-retrieved fraction of a second.", The Decisive Moment, Cartier Bresoon  

Henri Cartier Bresson, FRANCE. Paris. Place de l'Europe. Gare Saint Lazare. 1932 

• A classic decisive moment, the pose of the man jumping the puddle mirrors the post of the dancer in the background. The scene is almost like a stage set that the photographer has found, waiting for the moment to strike.

Robert Capa, "The Falling Soldier", 1936 

• The photo was claimed by a Catalan newspaper to be all staged, the "soldier" was not photographed near Cerro Muriano in Andalusia as it was so claimed to be, but about 50 km to the south-west, far from the frontline and on a day when there was no military action. 

Robert Capa, "Normandy, France", 1945 

•  Introduces the idea of the photographer being a part of it all, taking the role of a soldier himself. 

Hung Cont Ut, "Accidental Napalm Attack", 1972 

• An anti-war image of sort as it exposes the real effects of the 'accident' and an extreme presentation of human suffering.  

Robert Haeberle, "People about to be Shot", 1969 

• The photographer of the shot had told the shooters to delay the execution just so that he could have this photo taken. 

Don McCullin, "Shell Shocked Soldier", 1968

•  After Vietnam, being just as traumatized, McCullin went on to photograph children and landscapes as a form of retreat. 
• Documentary exhausted, "To speak of documentary photography (at this point in its history) is to run headlong into a morass of contradiction, confusion and ambiguity, a position made more problematic by the way in which the increasing sophistication of visual technology makes it difficult to know what is 'real' and what has been 'faked'." ~ Clarke:1997:163 

Jeremy Deller, "The Battle of Orgreave", 2001 

• A reenactment of the event that took place in 18 June 1984. 
• "Deller is both preserving the memory of political struggles which no longer have force in the culture, and indicating how contemporary sensibilities have come detached from those histories which have formed it." (Nash: 2006:49) 
• How does one make documentary work? Without attempting to force a setting or to disrespect the subjects? 
• Has the Deutsche Borse turned into a conceptual art prize? 
• Judges of the photography contest appear to favor experimental art images over traditional photographs - as last night's victory for Sophie Ristelhueber demonstrates.