Paraphrasing - Doucemntary Photograph, Graham Clarke ''The photograph''

19/11/12

Documentary Photography has dominated the photographic history, and has created some iconic names  Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Sebasito Salagado and many more. The term document, means 'to evidence' and evidence being a truthful account/information that can be relied on. Documentary Photography as a genre, is a process of this documentation of evidence, recording experiences/events in periods of time which can be used as a truthful and objective account.

The documentary photograph, is one of the most personal and intimate forms of the photographic practice, exploiting poverty,social, political injustice, deprivation and disaster, these creating emotion responses to how the photographer approaches the subject matter. However from the way the photographer approaches the situation can show different interpretations of how audiences can read the documented photographs, which can introduce false accusations of the truth, making some documentary photography unreliable.From the twentieth century documentary photography had visualized history as a series of images which exploit and show the complexities of human experiences.

This idea of how the photograph can be manipulate fro the photographers interpretation of the scene, can be argued from the cliche saying  ''the camera does not lie'' It has the technical ability to record and scene, in an objective way, however it is how the image is read by the viewers which can make it subjective. The documented  evidence through photographs are 'windows in the world' and it is a privileged to modern readers as we have this technology and ability to record detailed events.

Because as modern day photographers, we have an advantage to photograph these events, which introduce all the moral implications. This was of exploiting the suffering of poverty, or the crime in war, can be seen as an art form through the camera, however there is no personal attachment to the subject matter and the photographer which can create this social and moral implications.