Helen,clarke@leeds-art.ac.uk
- We associate photograph as document as a type of truth.
- There's always a balance of power between the photographer and the subject, one has more power than the other, usually, you'd expect it to be the photographer.
- William Edward Kilburn 'The Great Chartist Meeting At The Common' 1848.
- They're attempting to reform the laws, and the conditions of the work place.
- Use of the camera to privilege certain moments in history.
- It gives us a window in the event, it acts as proof this happened.
- Photographer's presence isn't acknowledged in the image.
- "In many contexts the notion of a literal and objective record of history is a limited illusion. It ignores the entire cultural and sosicla background against which the image was taken." Grahame Clarke
- "How the other half live" Jacob Riis, 1890.
- 'Bandit's Roost, 59 1/2 Mulberry"
- In Riis' images, as a guest as a middle class male, which access to the technology, his subjects do not have access to his tech'.
- They're being told what to think by the photographer.
- The way the figures stand in the street, we can see they're looking in interest towards Riis.
- "A Growler Gang in Session (Robbing a Lush" 1887
- They're nothing documentary about this image at all, it's purely constructed.
- "Russian Steel Workers, Homestead, Pa.," 1908, Lewis Hine
- Another group of people who feel have presence, there's eye contact, we're making a connection.
- "Duffer Boy", 1909, Hine
- He never exploits his subjects,
- Hine doesn't attempt to shock the viewer, he reports the condition.
- F.S.A Farm Security Administration
- "Sharecroppers Home" 1937 Margeret Bourke-White
- This would have been in a magazine, where text would be with the image, to confirm the truth.
- "Interior Of a Black Farmers House" 1939, Russel Lee
- His image is more like a press photograph, less composition, new human presence in the image.
- "Migrant Mother" 1936, Dorothea Lange
- She describes the woman as an object, not asking her questions, or even her name.
- She saw the photo opportunity and took it.
- "Floyd Burroughs (George Gudger), Hale County, Alabama" 1963, Walker Evans
- The photo is a 4:5 photo, no cropping, with the original edge on.
- Asthetic-sising poverty, almost making poverty look beautiful, the human spirt rising above the conditions.
- "Graveyard, House & Steel Mill, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania", Walker Evans
- "Northumberland Miner at his evening Meal" 1937, Bill Brandt.
- Making significant all the objects in the image, it's not a document, everything is symbolic, there's nothing usual about the objects featured around the subjects.
- "Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey" 1958, Robert Frank
- A privately funded project, externally. And he has a certain about of freedom as expression
- He begins to redefine document photography.
- He uses the caption to contradict the image.
- He isn't showing the parade, in the photo shows people standing at the window, watching the parade.
- "St. Patricks's Day, Firth Avenue" 1954-55, William Klien
- In all of this photographs, someone is looking into the camera, acknowledging Klien's presence.
- This makes us feel less voyeur.
- "Dance In Brooklyn" 1955, William Klien.
- There's a very dark connotation to the image, using grain and blur.
- Magnum.
- Cartier-Bresson & Capa.
- The Decisive Moment - "photography achieves its highest distinction - reflecting the universality of the human condition in a never-to-be-retieved fraction of a second" - Cartier-Bresson.
- Surrealism
- Documentary in War
- "The Falling Soldier" 1936, Robert Capa.
- The image was originally recognised as the moment of the soldiers death being captured on film.
- However, this is disputed, they say this was not real, it was taken 50km for the stated location.
- A debunking of the myths of a decisive moment in war.
- "Normandy, France" 1945, Robert Capa
- He uses blur to imply his presence in the water, the merge of the gun and the camera.
- "Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp" 1945, George Rodger
- The way he's photographed this bodies he's kept a respectful distance. I could use close ups, which would depict horror.
- "Buchenwald" 1945, Lee Miller
- "Accidental Napalm Attack" 1972, Hung Cong Ut.
- Is it the photographer's role to document, or to intervene?
- "People About to be shot" 1969, Robert Haeberle
- He shouted "Hold it" before he took the image, he halts the process, implicit within the shooting itself, other-rides any human response to the work.
- "Shell Shocked Soldier" 1968, Don McCullin
- The effect of war. We're seeing the trauma, and in a way, McCullin's own trauma.
- Colour images, 'Realer than real'.
- Documentary Exhausted (Clarke 1997;163)
- Documentary Constructed: William Neidich (1989) constructs images which are missing from history, photographing things which would have been impossible to photograph.
- For example taking pictures of native american woman having knives held to their face, which would have been impossible. Using 19th century processes.
- "Native North Americans" Early C20th, Edward Curtis
- Documenting the tribal disappearance.
- "Nuba Tribesmen, Victor of a Wrestling Contest"
- "The Battle of Orgreave" 2001, Jeremy Deller - recreating a riot from the 1980s in 2001.
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