Documentary: new cultures, new spaces.-- ‘Photography: a critical introduction surveyors and surveyed’

The Archetypal documentary project wanted to make the audience recognise particular subjects, normally with the notion of changing the existing political or social situations. They weren’t presented as a single photograph but normally accompanied by or incorporated into written texts providing information about the nature of things and authenticity of the piece; however, the photographers were never named for their work for the magazines and so appeared anonymous. The post-war consumer boom in the 1930’s started to allow photographers to focus on different subject matter for example, everyday life and cultural spaces.

                ‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank captured documentary ironic figures of the fleeting moments of ordinary life; it bought the outsiders’ eye upon the USA in the 1950s, a point where commonplace life was about to be turned into myth by not specifying any particular social being or class. He found that documentary is based on what the photographer is interested in; facts now matter less than appearances. William Klein was photographing around the same but documenting the disorder and randomness of New York. His work created special artistic and psychological interest as they had strange juxtapositions and are randomly set out to show the city is restless, crowded and alienating.

                British and French photographers were taking a different approach to documenting the urban streets by presenting new subject matter or old themes treated in a different way. The political project of class and visual ambiguity interested most photographers; Tony Ray- Jones created a book, ‘A day off: An English Journal’, of social class from an English play. Bill Brandt compared photographs of different classes by showing maids and mistresses on a double-page spread, these types of photographs offered a personal view of the nature of social existence.  Power and control was another grand narrative that was prominent in photographs. Each society created its own ‘regime of truth’ that power is in everyday life; an abstract force that is used in order to enforce obedience, but within a disciplinary society the body is a source of knowledge. I t was found that photography was now used as surveillance rather than revealing the nature and suffering of society.  

                In the 1960s colour appeared, the American photographers used it to show feeling and expressions whilst the British showed a broader range of social and anthropological readings. Henri Cartier-Bresson thought there were problems with using colour that it doesn’t show its complexity as black and white. The improvement of photography has influenced photojournalism also but there are now no archives and anyone can take the photos and send them in to newspapers.