Documentary Photography
Started: 1843
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 | Street Photography Movement Page |
 | Social Realism Movement Page |
 | Straight Photography Movement Page |
KEY ARTISTS
 | Jacob Riis Quick View Further External Info  |
| Jacob Riis |  |
| Jacob Riis was a Danish-American journalist and social documentary photographer best-known for revealing the plight of the working class in nineteenth century New York City. Riis was a "muckraker," a social reformer who strove to improve living conditions for the poorest of society. In his photography and journalism, Riis exposed the horrors of tenement life in the seminal book, How the Other Half Lives. Further External Info | ||
 | Lewis Hine Quick View Further External Info |
| Lewis Hine | |
| Lewis Hine was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States. Further External Info | ||
 | August Sander Quick View Artist Page |
| August Sander | |
| Referred to as the most important German portrait photographer of the twentieth century, August Sander's landmark series, People of the 20th Century, depict the citizens of the Weimar Republic, no matter of class or standing. Art Story: August Sander Artist Page | ||
 | Eugène Atget Quick View Artist Page |
| Eugène Atget | |
| Eugène Atget was a French photographer who in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century carefully and comprehensively documented the street scenes, architecture and artists of Paris. Atget, whose work was characterized by long exposure, famously sold his photographs to a great number of Parisian artists, including Man Ray, which were used as visual aids for painting. Art Story: Eugène Atget Artist Page | ||
 | Dorothea Lange Quick View Artist Page |
| Dorothea Lange | |
| Dorothea Lange's images of Depression America made her one of the most acclaimed documentary photographers of the twentieth century. She went on to become a leading photo-journalist working for magazines such as Fortune and Life. Art Story: Dorothea Lange Artist Page | ||
 | Walker Evans Quick View Artist Page |
| Walker Evans | |
| The photographs of Walker Evans told the story of American working-class life with an exacting frankness that was truly revolutionary for its time. He is best well-known for his documentation of the effects of the Great Depression, especially for the iconic portrait of Southern Farmer's wife. Art Story: Walker Evans Artist Page | ||
"There are two things I wanted to do. I wanted to show the things that had to be corrected. I wanted to show the things that had to be appreciated."
Summary of Documentary Photography
The term Documentary Photography describes photography that attempts to capture real-life situations and settings. Since Nicéphore Niépce made the first photograph in 1816, photography's capacity to capture reality led to enthusiastic interest in documenting all aspects of contemporary life. As a result, Documentary Photography became a genre as early as the mid-1800s. As the medium developed, however, Documentary Photography became so diffuse it came to be discussed through a whole series of photographic sub-genres.
Lacking, then, a truly precise definition, Documentary Photography is best thought of as an umbrella term that encompasses many styles and themes including: Social Documentary; Conservation Photography; Ethnographic Photography; War Photography; the photo essay; New Documents; and Social Landscape photography. What unites these styles at basis is the principle that the camera is in essence a machine for recording reality. Though one cannot say it is objective, the intention of the documentary photographer is to bring to light some otherwise hidden reality or injustice. Stylistically, documentarians typically favor sharply focused and/or pure images, that eschew darkroom manipulation or forgery. Other genres of photography, including Street Photography and Photojournalism, sometimes include particular works that are considered documentary images, though both genres primarily focus on capturing a moment, or split second whether that be an encounter on a street or a moment of breaking news.
Key Ideas
One of the earliest Documentary Photographers, Danish immigrant Jacob Riis, was so successful at his art that he befriended President Theodore Roosevelt and managed to change the law and create societal improvement for some the poorest in America.
Important Art and Artists of Documentary Photography | |
  | Bandits' Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry Street (1888)Artist: Jacob Riis Artwork description & Analysis: This photograph depicts an alley in a slum located in what was called "The Bend," a notorious neighborhood between Mulberry, Baxter, Bayard, and Park Streets in New York. Riis said of the The Bend that "Abuse is the normal condition...murder its everyday crop." Gelatin silver print - Museum of Modern Art, New York |
 | Addie Card, 12 years. Spinner in North Pormal Cotton Mill (1910)Artist: Lewis Hine Artwork description & Analysis: Dressed in her uniform of a dirty work smock, and her bare feet blackened with grease, Addie Card leans with one arm casually resting on the spinning machinery that fills up the background with spindles and skeins. Her blank face stares at the viewer, evoking the grueling toll of child labor. Writer Elizabeth Winthrop observed of Addie that her "left arm rests easily on the huge machinery but crooked at a strange angle, as if perhaps a bone had been broken and never set properly," perhaps incurred while working, as terrible industrial accidents were frequent. Winthrop added that "To keep her hair from the frame's hungry grasp, it is pulled tight and pinned in a style befitting a grown woman." Yet her delicate features, her sad eyes, and her right arm hanging in exhaustion at her side, give her the wistfulness of a child. Hine was to describe her in his notes, as an "Anaemic little spinner" who first claimed to be ten years old, then admitted that she was twelve and had started working during the summer but intended to stay on. Her deception about her age reflected the reality that manufacturers believed that younger girls, due to their small hands and gender, were ideal textile workers. Gelatin silver print - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection |
 Artwork Images | Three Farmers (1914)Artist: August Sander Artwork description & Analysis: Sander's photograph depicts three young farmers, dressed up as city dandies in suits with hats and canes, on their way to a Saturday night dance in the Westerwald region of Germany (where Sander was born). An incongruous effect is created by the contrast between their fashionable appearance and the setting with its muddy path and vast fields in the background. Looking for new clients, Sander returned to the region in 1910 after establishing his studio in Cologne. One evening, by chance, he encountered the three men moving along the road and asked them to pose for the lengthy exposure required by his large format camera. The two men on the right echo each other's still pose, while, the man on the left, caught in midstride, his cane at an angle, and a cigarette in his mouth, seems to have just paused for a moment to turn to look at the viewer. As a result Sander's most famous image takes on qualities of both a formal photo and a snapshot, while at the same time as cultural historian Michael Jennings wrote it documents the "momentum of the transition away from the land and into the cities." Gelatin silver print - Tate Museum of Modern Art, London |
More Documentary Photography Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
Available from:
First published on 21 May 2019. Updated and modified regularly. 
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