Documentary and the Document: August Sander

‘ … the question is and will remain: in documentary photography, what is it that is really documented?

(Derrick Price 2015: p. 132)

So, what is the significance of the photographic document? And how have photographers worked with documentary portraiture to create such records? There are also complexities when making images as a record; as Durand says, the‘[objective] can be shifted and reconstituted again and again during the course of our historical perception of it.’ (Derrick Price 2015: p. 132). The examples in this case study show how different photographers have worked to create historic records, and how in some cases, these have moved beyond their creator’s initial aims.

Hill and Adamson

The first example here is that of Hill and Adamson. Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill were pioneering photographers, working in Edinburgh during the 1840s. In 1843, Adamson established his studio in Rock House in Edinburgh with the aim of documenting the 447 faces of all those to appear in the monumental painting ‘The first General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, signing the Act of separation and the Deed of Demission’, which had taken David Octavius Hill 23 years to paint.

The project began as a study of the Scottish Free Church, but eventually spread to a wider selection of the community. In less than four years, they produced 3,000 Calotype paper negatives. These images were collected into photographic albums depicting fishing folk from Newhaven, near Leith Docks, Edinburgh. This was one of the first photographic records of the working classes in Britain.

August Sander

August Sander was a German photographer who worked commercially in the studio making portraits for various different purposes. He is known however for his monumental project ‘People of the Twentieth Century’, made during the Weimar era, for which he produced hundreds of portraits of the German people.

Sander’s plan was to create a ‘Master Portfolio’, a set of pictures that showed the different ‘types’ of people who made up Germany. This would be a compendium of society, and he began with a commission to photograph farmers in Westerwald, the area in which he lived.

Master Portfolio

The Master Portfolio was made up of 46 albums, with 12 pictures in each. These were then split into seven different groups.

The seven key groups were:

• Farmers: original primal-type.
• Craftsmen: the worker, and worker types.
• Women.
• Professions: ranging from student to soldier to politician.
• Artists.
• The city.
• Marginal figures.

The list aimed to cover all walks of life, from those grounded to the earth (farmers), to high culture and then the lowest members of society (as seen at the time).

All of the images are carefully arranged, with either full or half-length images, produced in a very formal manner. The images relate to the early ethnographic images made during the nineteenth century, where subjects are seen with props and costume that refers to their culture. For Sander’s images, these refer instead to their job or role in society.

Developments in the art world at the time

After World War I artists all over Europe were concerned with a new form of expression. This was particularly characterised by a critical engagement with contemporary events, and the development of more conceptual work. However Sander was not interested in the experimental practices of other German photographers at the time, but rather stuck to his own rules.

‘See, observe and think correctly’

Sander was focused on what he called ‘stern frontality’ and producing a typological classification, a system that works to reveal similarities and differences when viewed in a series. This formality led him to become involved in a growing movement in Germany in the 1920s to 1940s called New Objectivity. This movement aimed at a stripping away of the pictorial and poetic from imagery, to leave a more objective representation of the world.

Key figures in the movement were Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch, and these led on to more contemporary artists who have explored the themes further: Bernd and Hilla Becher and Thomas Ruff.

Sander and the Nazi Party

During the 1930s and 1940s Sander had several dealings with the Nazi Party. One of the most significant was when his son Erich, a member of the Socialist Workers Party, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for political crimes.

After this, in 1936, Face of Our Time (an initial book from the Master Portfolio) was seized by the National Socialists, and the plates destroyed. The Nazis resented Sander’s intrusion into their arena, that of presenting a collective view of German society. The images did not conform to the perception the government tried to express, with many of the people photographed not having Aryan features. Sander had also included the unemployed and disabled within the collection, again a group that were not representative of the master race. They did respect him as a photographer though, and commissioned him to photograph many party members, hence these images being included in the final portfolios.

The archive

Today, Sander’s portraits are seen as being of great historical and humanistic interest, this in spite of the fact that in retrospect the rationale for his project seems very problematic. As with other thinkers of the time, Sander was categorising society based on inherited hierarchy, and that this, linked with a study of physiognomy, could tell a person’s position in the world.

As time has passed however, the initial seven groups and their associated stereotypes have become less important, as the power of the images, and the record they offer, comes to the fore. What we are left with is a truly enlightening document of a place, and a time.

Another related artist

Richard Avedon: In the American West

This project, commissioned by Mitchell A. Wilder, the director of the Amon Carter Museum in Texas, saw Avedon spend five years travelling to the West of America. During these trips, he spent his time photographing what he saw as the ‘real’ America. This was a study of working class people, photographed in a simple objective way much like Sander.

References

Price, Derrick (2015) ‘Surveyors and Surveyed’ in Photography: A Critical Introduction, 5th edition, London: Routledge.

Biographies

Susan Meiselas (b. 1948)

Meiselas is an American documentary photographer. Her first major photographic essay‘Carnival Strippers’ was published in 1976 and focused on the lives of women doing striptease at New England country fairs. In 1976 Meiselas joined Magnum, and is now best known for her coverage of the insurrection in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America.

http://www.susanmeiselas.com/

Moises Saman (b. 1974)

Saman is a Spanish/Peruvian photojournalist. His first major work was photographing the immediate aftermath of the last Balkan war in Kosovo. In 2000 Moises joined Newsday as a staff photographer, where he covered the fallout of the 9/11 attacks, as well as conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. Since 2007, Moises has worked as a freelance, for Panos Pictures and Magnum.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL535GR6

Roger Fenton (1819–69)

Fenton was a pioneering British photographer, one of the first war photographers and perhaps one of the most significant nineteenth century photographers. For a short period, he worked with landscape, portraits and still life. It was his work documenting the Crimean War, however, that is most remembered, with his image ‘The Valley of the Shadow Death’ being one of the most important war photographs ever made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Fenton

http://www.tate.org.uk/node/236924/default.shtm

Mathew B. Brady (1822–96)

Brady was one of the first American photographers, best known for his early war photography. He is considered one of the fathers of photojournalism after his documentation of the American Civil War. Brady used a mobile studio and darkroom on the battlefield, and his images brought details of the conflict to the public. During this period thousands of scenes were captured, as well as portraits of generals and politicians on both sides of the conflict. Like Fenton, these early images would become some of the most significant records of conflict ever made.

http://www.mathewbrady.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathew_Brady

Robert Capa (1913–54)

Capa was a Hungarian war photographer who, during his short career, photographed the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the First Indochina War. Capa was based in Paris, where his circle of friends included Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. In 1947 Capa founded Magnum Photos with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert. Magnum was an agency for freelance photographers, the first of its kind. On 25 May 1954 he was killed when he stepped on a landmine in Thai-Binh, Indochina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL535353

Don McCullin, (b. 1935)

McCullin is an internationally known British photojournalist, particularly known for his war photography. During his long career he has photographed the Cyprus War, conflict in Biafra and the Belgian Congo, the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, Bangladesh, the Lebanese Civil War, El Salvador and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. His most significant images came from Vietnam and Cambodia, where he spent long periods of time covering the horrors of the conflict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_McCullin

http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/29-don-mccullin/overview/

Luc Delahaye (b. 1962)

Delahaye is a French photographer known for his works depicting conflicts and social issues. In 1994, he joined Magnum Photos but left in 2004 due to an apparent lack of freedom. He has worked in many conflict zones, including Lebanon, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Chechnya. He is particularly known for his books Portrait/1, L'Autre and Winterreise, as well as his large scale gallery images of conflict, made using large format.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Delahaye

http://www.prixpictet.com/portfolios/power-shortlist/luc-delahaye/

Paul Seawright (b. 1965)

Seawright is Professor of Photography and Head of the Belfast School of Art at the University of Ulster. He is particularly known for his images of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ and his 2002 commission by the Imperial War Museum to create a document of the war in Afghanistan. His quiet, reflective approach is considered as a divergence from conventional war photography.

http://www.paulseawright.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Seawright

Adam Broomberg (b. 1970) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971)

Broomberg and Chanarin are artists living and working in London. Together they make work that analyses images of conflict, as well as the nature of photography itself. In 2013 they were awarded the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for War Primer 2, and in 2014 they were awarded the ICP Infinity Award for their publication Holy Bible.

http://www.choppedliver.info/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Broomberg_%26_Oliver_Chanarin

Jacob August Riis (1849–1914)

Riis was a Danish American social reformer, journalist and perhaps the first social documentary photographer. His most significant work was the documentation of the poor neighbourhoods of New York. He worked tirelessly through first writing and then photography, to raise awareness of this deprivation. Riis was a newcomer to photography, having first worked as a journalist, but soon helped push the medium forwards, with his gritty images, often using flash, of New York communities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis

Sebastião Salgado (b. 1944)

Salgado is a Brazilian social documentary photographer and photojournalist. He is considered one of the most significant photographers of the twentieth century, having made seminal work for over three decades. Salgado worked for the photo agencies Sygma, Gamma and Magnum Photos until 1994, when he formed Amazonas images, an agency created exclusively for his work. During his career he has travelled to over 100 countries, making work for a range of different outputs. He is perhaps particularly known for his powerful books such as Other Americas, Sahel: l’homme en détresse, Sahel: el fin del camino, Workers, Terra, Migrations and Portraits and Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebasti%C3%A3o_Salgado

http://www.amazonasimages.com/

Humphrey Spender (1910–2005)

Spender was a British photographer and painter. He is best known for his photographs of the working class in Britain for Mass Observation and Picture Post. Whilst working as a photojournalist for the Daily Mirror, Spender grew to distrust press photography, viewing it as propaganda. It was at this time that a group of liberal intellectuals set up Mass Observation, to study ‘real life’. Spender would become a key member of this project, working alone to photograph everyday life. The images have now become an important record of this time.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/15/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Spender

Farm Security Administration (FSA)

The FSA (originally called the Resettlement Administration) was an American Government organisation, created as part of the New Deal in 1935 to combat American rural poverty. The FSA aimed to rehabilitate the lives of sharecroppers, tenants and farmers by moving them to new, more suitable land. In time, the FSA shifted away from collectivised farming towards a program to help farmers buy land. It is now called the Farmers Home Administration. As part of the original FSA project, Roy Stryker was given the job of producing a photographic record of rural poverty. This photography program created some of the most influential documentary photography of the twentieth century, and included the photographers Arthur Rothestein, Theo Jung, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, John Vachon and John Collier.

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsa/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration

Helen Levitt (1913–2009)

Levitt was an American photographer, best known for her images of New York. She spent six decades making observations on the street, and has created a lasting poetic image of men, women and children on the streets and among the tenements of New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Levitt

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004)

Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer who founded the term ‘The Decisive Moment’. He helped develop ‘street photography’ as well as a new form of candid reportage. Due to the emergence of the Leica camera, Cartier-Bresson became an early user of 35mm film. He was a prisoner of war during World War II, but escaped in 1943 to join the resistance. In 1947, with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David ‘Chim’ Seymour and William Vandivert he founded Magnum Photos. In 1952 he published his seminal book Images à la Sauvette (The Decisive Moment).

http://www.henricartierbresson.org/en/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_10_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZMYN

Martin Parr (b. 1952)

Parr is a British documentary photographer and collector. He is known for his witty observations of English society as well as images that explore wealth and power around the world. He is now a major collector of photobooks, and alongside Gerry Badger, has published 3 volumes of The Photobook: A History.Key works include: The Last Resort (1983–85), The Cost of Living (1987–89), Small World (1987–94) and Common Sense (1995–99).

http://www.martinparr.com/

RICHARD BILLINGHAM AND PERSONAL DOCUMENTS

In this chapter, the focus is on the development of personal photography, from snapshots to albums and from Kodak to Flickr the history of these intimate photographs is discussed. Here, we will divert from the chapter, and focus on photography that has grown from this history and finds itself presented in the gallery for the entire world to see. Here, photographers use intimate photography. ‘[The] technical shortcomings of domestic, non-art photographs are employed as the language through which private experience is communicated to the viewer.’ (Charlotte Cotton 2014: p. 137) The main focus for the case study is the artist Richard Billingham, and it refers to the sections in the book titled ‘The working classes picture themselves’, as well as ‘And in the galleries …’

Patricia Holland introduces this idea in the chapter, saying ‘ … since the 1970s, a fascination with the personal and everyday life, together with the influence from the feminist movement brought private photography into galleries in new ways.’ (Patricia Holland 2015: p. 187) Here, we will take this point and expand upon it, moving away from the main content of the chapter.

Richard Billingham

Billingham came to prominence in 1994 as a student at the University of Sunderland. It was here, as a student of painting, that his images of his parents’ home were noticed for their power and beauty. Taken over a period of years beginning in 1990 and initially intended as source material for paintings, the images have a striking authenticity. The focus of the images is Billingham’s father Ray and mother Liz. Their often chaotic relationship is documented with great sympathy, set as it is against a stark domestic environment.

At the time, Billingham was not making the images with any thought of presenting them, but intended instead to make paintings inspired by artists such as Walter Sickert, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. It is in the work of these artists that his inspiration can be seen; their raw and expressive work, combined with a subconscious awareness of personal photography has led Billingham to make the images he has.

Patricia Holland describes ‘ … Billingham’s painful yet hilarious images which relentlessly record, in huge and garishly coloured panels, the chaos of his parent’s home …’ (Patricia Holland 2015: p. 187). This refers to the presentation of the work, which is seen in two different ways: first on the gallery wall, where large aluminium mounted images are seen in all of their bold glory, and second in the book Ray’s a Laugh, published in 2000.

Doug Rickard writes that the book

… is a bone jarring chronicle of the parts of life that shouldn’t … the life that tried, but wouldn’t, and dreams that simply couldn’t. It is a chronicle of everything that hurts … a cartoonish-nightmare jaunt through the land of alcohol-living, wet-smelly breath that stinks and simmers, chapped-lips that burn and crack, of space to live that shrinks and crowds further inward, of carpet that rots, of scratched linoleum that looks as if it wants to escape, of paint that wants to peel away and go somewhere else, of childhood dreams that learn to stay in the closet and behave, that learn to stay in the clouds, far away, of love and devotion that exists but is trampled on by vice and forcefully dominated by earthly human-short-circuits …

 (Doug Rickard)

Billingham went on to be nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001.

Related artists

‘ ... [photographers] developed a form of domestic hyper-realism, seeking out the squalor of everyday life, peeling off the conventions of the family snapshot.’

(Liz Wells 2015: p. 187)

There are many artists who use the visual language of the snapshot, or the intimacy of the personal photograph in their practice. Each of the following has their own approach, but all are exploring domesticity and the everyday.

Nan Goldin

Goldin has been photographing her friends since the 1970s, creating an intimate record of various outsider communities of New York. Her first publication The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a seminal example of the personal photograph as artwork.

Nobuyoshi Araki

A significant figure in photography since the 1960s, Araki has explored many areas of photographic practice but it is his sexually explicit images of women that have made him the phenomenon that he is today.

Larry Clark

Clark came to prominence in 1995 after the release of his film Kids but it was the book Tulsa in 1971 that really saw the beginning of his exploration of intimate photography. This explicit record of drug-using teenagers from his hometown began a career long exploration of teenagers and their self-destructive lifestyles.

Nick Wapplington

Wapplington’s book Living Room aims to be a counter-point to the conventional grim representation of the working classes in Britain. Filled with colour, chaos and joy, the work uses the language of the personal photograph to tell a sympathetic and authentic story.

Elinor Carucci

Carucci, rather than working with the snapshot style, or the normal visual style of the personal photograph, focuses on the intimacy that is found in images of loved ones. In her book Closer, she gathers images that represent a universal insight into personal relationships.

References

Cotton, Charlotte (2014) The Photograph as Contemporary Art. 2nd edition, London: Thames and Hudson.

Holland, Patricia (2015) ‘Personal Photographs and Popular Photography’ in Photography: A Critical Introduction, 5th edition, London: Routledge.

Biographies

Jo Spence (1934–92)

Spence was a significant member of the photographic community from the 1970s onwards. As a photographer, she constantly experimented with the medium, making highly political work as well as work that dealt with her own personal struggles with cancer. Spence also worked to develop community photographic projects, including the Photography Workshop Ltd (with long-term collaborator Terry Dennett), the Hackney Flashers and Polysnappers.

http://www.jospence.org/

Bodies in transition: Rineke Dijkstra

‘Dijkstra’s photographs … depict bodies as social and changeable, transformed by experience. Although they are displayed to us, these bodies are not frozen, not easily objectified. They are bodies in transition.’

(Michelle Henning 2015: p. 230)

For this case study we will focus on the work of Rineke Dijkstra, and in particular her series Olivier (2000–3).

Click here for more information.

Dijkstra photographed an 18 year-old named Olivier Silva at the beginning of his time in the French Foreign Legion. The project began immediately after he had been accepted into the elite military unit, and followed him through a further three-year period. During this time Dijkstra visited Olivier for six more sessions in front of the camera. Dijkstra explains the project thus: ‘The idea was to follow a soldier, someone who comes in soft and young, then turns tough … but I'm really talking about a mental change, not a physical one.’ (Michael Kimmelman 2001)

The French Foreign Legion has legendary status as the destination for outcasts and renegades, with its tough regime of training and offer of anonymity. Dijkstra followed Olivier through his training in Aubagne, near Marseille, when he was stationed at Castelnaudary and the Pyrenees until the moment he was sent on active duty to Gabon, on the Ivory Coast.

Since the early 1990s, Rineke Dijkstra has been making portraits that have formed a key part of contemporary European photography. Within her work is the question of identity, and the ability of the photograph to reveal more than the surface of the subject. Dijkstra often focuses on intense emotional states to try and uncover a telling truth.

Her large-scale colour photographs, typically of young or adolescent subjects, recall her seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch precursors. The images are minimal, and force the viewer to engage with the subject. The use of the series further encourages scrutiny, with minimal shifts becoming amplified.

As well as Olivier, Dijkstra has made studies of bullfighters in Portugal after an appearance in the arena, marked both physically and mentally. She has also made portraits of three young mothers holding their newborn babies, tired, emotional and shaken, but with a strength that exudes from the image. But it is with Olivier perhaps, due to the serial nature of the work, that the transitions are so apparent. We see a young man shift and change in front of our eyes. The insecurity that can be found in Dijkstra’s Beach Portraits slips and fades away, leaving a different person present in the image. ‘It’s not so much the change of uniform, the chest hairs or the stronger biceps that matter. It’s the hardening of Olivier’s look, the realization that he has acquired authority, assurance and control.’(Michael Kimmelman 2001)

Nicholas Nixon

The ability of photography to reflect on the passing of time has been used many times. In particular we can think of the work of Mark Klett, who so elegantly displays the shifts and changes in the landscapes of the American West. But in terms of the body, there are few more elegant examples than Nicholas Nixon’s study of the Brown Sisters.

Click here for more information.

In 1975 Nixon made a photograph of his wife, Bebe, and her three sisters, Heather, Mimi and Laurie. Following a further picture made the following year, the sisters agreed to have a group portrait made annually. There would be two rules for the ongoing project, firstly, the sisters would always appear in the same order, and there would only be one image to represent a given year. Over the 40 years that this small event has taken place the approach has remained the same, yet the subtle changes start to build as the sequence develops. Faces shift and change, lines appear around the mouths and eyes. ‘Throughout this series, we watch these women age, undergoing life’s most humbling experience.’ (Susan Minot 2014)

For Nixon there is another important aspect here. Growing up as a single child there is a fascination with the bonds of siblings. We see the sisters move together over time, with a synchronicity and trust that shifts and changes from the early images, where each sister tries to express their own individuality. And, as the sisters grow ever closer, there hovers over the series the inevitability of death; all four sisters won’t be there forever, and once again the power of the photograph comes to the fore: the absolute finality of the image, and its recording of this long term transition of the body.

References

Henning, Michelle (2015) ‘The Subject as Object’ in Photography: A Critical Introduction, 5th edition, London: Routledge.

Biographies

Floris Neusüss (b. 1937)

Neusüss is a German photographer, renowned for working with Photograms, as well as being a writer and teacher on camera-less photography. He experimented widely with the photogram, and since the 1960s has been making Körperfotogramms (or whole-body photograms).

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/c/camera-less-photography-artists/

Fran Herbello (b. 1977)

Herbello is a Swiss photographer who combines aspects of sculpture and everyday life in his work. Much of his work focuses on parts of the human body, manipulated and abstracted so that meaning is shifted from the original context, leaving them to be considered simply as objects.

http://franherbello.com/

Gideon Mendel (b. 1959) 

Mendel is a London-based South African documentary photographer known widely for his campaigning and activism. He has spent over 20 years photographing the topic of HIV/AIDS, for which he has been recognised with the Eugene Smith Award for Humanistic Photography. As well as this, he spends his time photographing other humanitarian and political topics across the world.

http://gideonmendel.com/

Étienne Jules Marey (1830–1904)

Marey was a French photographer, doctor and physiologist known for his work on human and animal movement. In 1888, he invented a method of recording multiple exposures of movement called ‘chronophotographie’. Through this method he recorded accurate images of walking, running and jumping; the movement of animals; the trajectories of objects as well as liquid movement and the functioning of the heart.

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=7838

Hannah Höch  (1889–1978)

Hoch was a German photomontage artist, particularly known as a member of the Dada movement. Her montages consisted of images from popular culture, and were a commentary on the social change happening in Germany at the time. The images also explored the concept of the ‘New Woman’, with gender and identity being central to many works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_H%C3%B6ch

Hans Bellmer (1902–75)

Bellmer was a German surrealist, noted for his multifaceted practice, mostly involved in erotic fantasy. During the 1930s he began to work with dolls, drawings and printings, all showing erotic versions of the female body. After leaving Nazi Germany, Bellmer joined the Surrealists in Paris, where he continued to make work, including the illustrations for Oeillades ciselie en Branches and the books Les Jeux de la Poupée and L’Anatomie de l’Image.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hans-bellmer-736

Lorna Simpson (b. 1960)

Simpson is an African-American artist and photographer who came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with work about multiculturalism and ethnic divisions. Her most notable works combine words with photographs. These aim to confront the viewer with the underlying racism still found in American culture. Significant works include Guarded Conditions, Square Deal, Necklines, Call Waiting and Corridor.

http://www.lsimpsonstudio.com/

Andres Serrano (b. 1950)

Serrano is an American photographer known for his radical, and often controversial, work. Influenced by Surrealism and Dada, he often constructs tableaux incorporating religious iconography, dead animals, raw meat and human subjects, as well as the recurring presence of blood and other bodily fluids. Serrano reached infamy in 1989 with his photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine, titled Piss Christ.

http://www.artnet.com/awc/andres-serrano.html

Rineke Dijkstra (b. 1959)

Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer and video artist known for her deadpan formal portraiture, often working in series. Her work sits in, and references, the tradition of documentary portraiture, with August Sander being a clear reference point. Key works include Beaches, Mothers, Soldier and The Buzz Club.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rineke-dijkstra-2666

A SURVEY of previous case studies

Over the five editions of this book, Anandi Ramamurthy has produced numerous case studies that go into great depths regarding photography and commodity culture.

Over time, there have been shifts in culture and society, and this can be reflected in the studies. For example, the commodification of social relations and human feelings via social networking has grown immeasurably during this time, and is perpetuated over time and space.

So, included here are previous case studies, so that you can reflect on some of these changes, and how photography has shaped, and been shaped by the passing of time.

• 1st edn case study
• 2nd edn case study
• 4th edn case study

Biographies

Margaret Bourke-White (1904–71) 

Bourke-White was an American photojournalist. She is particularly known for her work with Life magazine. Throughout her career she worked in many conflict zones, including Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as the Dust Bowl in the American midwest. She was also heavily involved in covering World War II, where she captured haunting scenes as the allied forces liberated the concentration camps. She continued to cover many conflicts after that until retiring in 1969.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bourke-White

Cindy Sherman (b. 1954)

Sherman is an American photographer known for her constructed self-portraits. She is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century. Themes that are consistently explored include the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation. This includes a continual critique of imagery from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet and art history.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/cindy-sherman-1938

Paolo Roversi (b. 1947)

Roversi is an Italian portrait photographer working mostly with Polaroid. He works almost exclusively with large format cameras, black and white Polaroid and in the studio, making images that reference those of nineteenth century photographers.

http://www.npg.org.uk/fashion/roversi.php

Oliviero Toscani (b. 1942)

Toscani is an Italian photographer, widely known for his controversial advertising campaigns for Benetton. For almost 20 years Toscani worked for Benetton, delivering increasingly shocking adverts that focussed on themes such as AIDS, racism, war, religion and capital punishment.

http://www.olivierotoscani.it/

DOCUMENTARY ON THE WHITE WALL

In 1994 Brett Rogers introduced a photographic exhibition, including primarily documentary images, with the statement that documentary photography is “ignored by the art world that favours big pictures and high prices … ” and that “ … documentary photography has … come under harsh scrutiny from post-modern critics … ” (Liz Wells 2015: p. 346). Liz Wells says that this has “clearly changed”, with examples of contemporary photography such as Wall, Gursky, Hofer and Struth. But what of the gallery, and what of the more conventional documentary practices such as photojournalism? How do these fare in the contemporary gallery?

There have long been exhibitions of documentary photography, but they have not always been seen to forward the cause. In 1955, for example, there was the Family of Man show at MOMA. The show, a survey of reportage photography from across the world, aimed to give a utopian vision of humanity in harmony. It was hugely popular with the public, but many critics found fault. Allan Sekula describes the show as “ … the epitome of American Cold War Liberalism, with Steichen playing cultural attaché … ” (Allan Sekula, 1981). The show was seen as a very outdated view of the world, with a tendency towards patriarchy.

MOMA did continue to show documentary practice, with Diane Arbus having a solo show in the early 1970s, a period defined by the curatorial oversight of John Szarkowski. At the same time, other photographers who were loosely defined as having a documentary practice were seen in art spaces with shows for Frank, Friedlander, Winogrand and others. What defined these artists was their aesthetic approach that was in opposition to the humanist photography of Life magazine. And it is this rejection of the conventional forms of photojournalism that have defined the place of documentary photography ever since.

CRUEL AND TENDER

If things were complicated in America, then the situation in Britain was desperate. There were very few spaces that would show photography at all, let alone documentary practice. It was of considerable import then, when Tate announced that they would be holding their first major exhibition of photography at the Tate Modern (it would be another six years before Simon Baker would be appointed their first curator of photography), and it would be based on documentary practice.

Click here to see the Tate’s information on the show.

From 5 June–7 September 2003 the Tate Modern gallery in London threw open its doors to the public, with its largest ever display of photography. The show, titled Cruel and Tender, included work from Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Paul Graham, Andreas Gursky, Boris Mikhailov, Nicholas Nixon, Martin Parr, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Michael Schmidt, Fazal Sheikh, Stephen Shore, Thomas Struth and Garry Winogrand.

The list represents some of the most significant photographers from the twentieth century, and those photographers who work within documentary traditions. This includes some of the founders of the genre itself in Walker Evans and August Sander. The show not only signalled a welcoming of photography into a British institution, but also a welcoming of documentary photography. Once again however, the work represents an alternative approach to photojournalistic traditions.

Much of the work presented in the show can be described as straight photography, neutral, deadpan or objective, the type of photography that aims to present frank reality. For the photographers it included this meant looking at the world around us and avoiding idealised or clichéd imagery. This type of photography is often characterised by a slower working process, with the use of medium and large format cameras. In contemporary photography, this also sees the scale of the images increased, with documentary images being printed on a large scale, and therefore not looking out of place on the white gallery wall.

So, Cruel and Tender represents an acceptance of documentary photography in the gallery, and on a significant scale (100,000 people visited the show in London). However it still does not find a place for photojournalism, with new forms of documentary practice moving further away from this genre all the time.

AFTERMATH PHOTOGRAPHY

A continuation of this pattern sees the growing convention of Aftermath photography. This form of documentary photography sees photographers working around the edges of events, particularly in conflict zones. David Campany has termed this kind of work “late photography”, where the photographer concentrates on the traces, the evidence of violence rather than the action itself. The concern for photojournalists is that this kind of photography removes our connection to the human impact of these events. As Christy Lange says, “How does our impression of the war change if we only see ‘traces’ rather than the ‘faces’?” (Christy Lange, 2010). This kind of work however is much more suited to the gallery wall, and it is not uncommon to see large scale imagery of this kind adorning commercial, as well as public gallery walls.

Paul Seawright

Paul Seawright’s project Hidden is an example of “Late Photography”. Seawright was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to go to Afghanistan and respond to the conflict there. Using a large format camera, Seawright recorded Afghanistan in 2002 after a great deal of devastation had already happened in the country. The ensuing images are removed from the drama of photojournalism, and offer a subdued response to the landscape. This approach built upon work made in Belfast, and shows a concern for the hidden malevolence of the landscape.

OTHER RELATED ARTISTS

Simon Norfolk

Norfolk comes from a photojournalistic background, but has diversified in recent years to produce slower and more in depth studies. He too has made work in Afghanistan, also with a large format camera and a “Late Photography” approach.

Luc Delahaye

Delahaye makes work that relates much more to photojournalism in its subject than its approach. Often photographing in the midst of the action, he uses large format photography to create detailed large-scale images of scenarios.

MAGNUM, LOOKING FORWARDS

The photographic agency Magnum is grounded in photojournalism, having been formed by photojournalists at a time when the power of photojournalism was at its fullest. Magnum however is now shifting its stance, and as new members join the ranks, there is a fresh diversity in the agency. Although all clearly working in the documentary genre, there is a move towards including more contemporary forms of documentary practice, including photographers whose work is equally at home on the gallery wall as it is on the page. Key figures in this respect are Martin Parr and Alec Soth, but also Antoine d’Agata, Alessandra Sanguinetti and Bieke Depoorter.

OTHER INTERESTING EXAMPLES

Esko Männikkö

Männikkö makes quiet observations of remote lives in the far north of Finland. His images are documentary in their nature, but are produced with the book and the gallery wall in mind. The presentation of the images is very important, with framing in particular shaping the gallery experience. All of his images are shown in heavy wood frames, either salvaged or specially produced to give a certain weight to the modest images.

Walid Raad

Raad is a photographer, artist and academic, and the author of the Atlas Group – an imaginary project looking at the cultural history of Beirut and the Lebanon. The project plays with the authenticity afforded to certain forms of documentary practice, and includes documents, lectures, films and text as well as photographs. The work is most often displayed in a white- walled gallery, and works with the implied veracity of the photographic image.

References

Lange, Christy (2010) ‘The limitations of photojournalism and the ethics of artistic representation’, Freize 132.

Rogers, Brett (1994) in Wells, Liz (2015) ‘On and Beyond the White Walls’ in Photography: a Critical Introduction, 5th edition, London: Routledge.

Sekula, Allan (1981) ‘The Traffic in Photographs’, Art Journal, vol. 41, no. 1.

Biographies

Karen Knorr  (b. 1954)

Knorr is a German/Puerto Rican photographer and Professor of Photography at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey. Her work is concerned with the politics of representation, with projects that include Belgravia, Gentlemen, Connoisseurs, Academies, Being for Another, Fables and India Song.

http://karenknorr.com/

Camille Silvy (1834–1910)

Silvy was a French portrait photographer, who established one of the most successful Victorian photographic studios in London. He photographed most of the Royal Family and the British aristocracy. The collection is now part of the National Portrait Gallery’s archives.

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp08115/camille-silvy

Henry Peach Robinson (1830–1901)

Peach Robinson was an English photographer, working at the very outset of the medium. In 1857 he opened a studio making portraits, but his real creative drive came from making combination prints, where he would join multiple negatives together to create a single image. His approach was largely informed by Pictorialism, and the aesthetics of painting. Like many photographers from the time, the effect of the chemicals caused him severe physical problems, culminating in his death in 1901.

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/1936/henry-peach-robinson-british-1830-1901/

Bill Brandt (1904–83)

Brandt was a British photographer and photojournalist, known for his images of British society. Although he was born in Germany, Brandt made much of his significant work in Britain, and is widely considered to be one of the most important British photographers of the twentieth century. Brandt published several books of his work including The English at Home, A Night in London, Literary Britain and Perspective of Nudes, and the survey book Shadow of Light. As well as this, he was a regular contributor to magazines such as Lilliput, Picture Post and Harper’s Bazaar.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/b/bill-brandt/

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946)

Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian-born abstract painter, designer, typographer, photographer, film-maker and theorist. He was heavily involved in the development of the Bauhaus in Germany, being particularly involved in experimental photography. In 1937, during World War II, he moved to Chicago, where he was the director of the New Bauhaus, and then his own School of Design.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/laszlo-moholy-nagy-1649

Edward Henry Weston (1886 –1958)

Weston was an American photographer, recognised as a key figure in the development of Modernist photography, and one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. His work spans landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits and more, with photographs that are characterised by detailed representations made with a 10x8 view camera. Having spent much of his working life there, it is the landscape of California that is often the location, and the subject.

http://edward-weston.com/

Lee Miller (1907–77)

Miller was an American model, muse, photographer, artist and war correspondent, and perhaps one of the most exciting figures to have ever existed in photographic history. Her relationship with photography began when she was a model for Edward Steichen, Hoyningen-Heune and Arnold Genthe, before moving to Paris to work with artist and photographer Man Ray. Here she became known for her portrait and fashion photographs, as well as her surrealist images. After this she spent time making long-distance desert voyages, setting up her own photographic studio and working for Vogue. In 1944 she travelled to the front lines of World War II with the US Army to make images for Time Life. During this time Miller saw the siege of St Malo, the Liberation of Paris, the fighting in Luxembourg and Alsace, the Russian/American link-up at Torgau and the liberation of the Buchenwald and Dachau death camps. Whilst in Germany she famously visited Hitler and Eva Braun’s houses in Munich and Berchtesgaden, where she was photographed bathing in Hitler’s bath. After the war she continued to work as a photographer, and settled in Britain where she made portraits and fashion images until her death in 1977.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/l/lee-miller/

Keith Arnatt (1930–2008)

Arnatt was a British conceptual artist and photographer. His career began with performance and film, but it was in photography that he found his voice. Much of Arnatt’s work was concerned with the details of everyday life, with his humour and dry wry wit a constant throughout. Key works include Self Burial (Television Interference Project), Notes from Jo,Brick and AONB.

http://www.keitharnattestate.com/

Guerrilla Girls (1985–present)

Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting inequality within the art world. The group began in 1985, with very public acts of protest, by aiming to increase awareness of the sexism present in the contemporary art world. The members of the group are famous for wearing gorilla masks, and attending high profile events in and around New York.  http://www.guerrillagirls.com/

Jeff Wall (b. 1946)

Wall is a Canadian photographer, renowned for his large-format staged photographs. In his images that range from mundane corners of the urban environment to elaborate tableaux, Wall aims to create suspense in the viewer. The images combine aspects of nineteenth-century historical paintings, as well as large-scale illuminated advertising.

http://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/jeff-wall/

Ingrid Pollard (b. 1953)

Pollard is a British artist and photographer known for her work that challenges traditional views of race and landscape. A key work is Pastoral Interludes, a series of photographs of black people in rural landscapes, considering their primarily urban representation.

http://www.ingridpollard.com/

Susan Derges (b. 1955)

Derges is a British artist, working primarily with cameraless photography. Having trained initially as a painter, her approach to photography does not fit with the conventions of the medium. Much of her significant work has been made at night in the open air. These works are often large in scale, and, unlike many photographic works, are unique.

http://www.susanderges.com/

John Kippin (b. 1950)

Kippin is a British photographer, known for his work around documentary photography. Much of his work combines image and text, challenging realist traditions of the genre. Since the 1980s he has made significant work that looks at the landscape, questioning conventions of pictorial and aesthetic beauty, as well as cultural and political change in Britain.

http://johnkippin.com/

Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955)

Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer, known for his large-scale depictions of global industrial landscapes. His photographs are concerned with the impact of human activity on the planet, especially the huge industrial systems we have constructed. Key works include Water, Oil, China, Manufactured Landscapes and Before the Flood.

http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

Anne Noble (b. 1954)

Noble is a New Zealand-based photographer and academic, working with landscape, documentary and installation, with both still and moving images. Her work is known for its conceptual rigour, with series developing over many years. Since 2001 Noble has been making work about Antarctica, exploring the imagined and real experience of the landscape. Anne is Professor of Fine Arts (Photography) at Massey University Wellington.

http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/noble/