Quick Tip: 4 Photo Documentary GuidelinesDavid Appleyard on Mar 8th 2010 with 2 comments Documentary photography can be fun, rewarding, and offer a real insight into a particular subject or event. It can be difficult to get right, and today we’ll be offering four guidelines to follow when embarking on your first documentary project!

Plan and Research in Advance

Photo by guccioYou need to have a good background to the situation in question before attempting to document it. This requires research, reading around the event, and generally becoming well-versed in what you’re about to capture.It’s also important to build up a relationship with the people involved in the photo shoot – a child’s mother, the staff in the workplace, or the people organising a charity event. Whatever you’re shooting, the results will be far more valuable if you understand what the client wants. It will also help you with the second point…

Pick an Angle to Capture the Real

StoryMost events will have more than one “story” running through them. There will be the obvious one – an organised charity run, for instance – and a more interesting, personal narrative, such as this story of a a prosthetic leg helping a runner to compete.You’ll need to take images that capture the big picture, but the outcome of the shoot will be far more memorable if you capture the smaller details going on. Check out these images of Obama’s inauguration. The photos depicting the huge scale of the event are amazing, but equally so are those of George Bush gazing out the window of his helicopter as he leaves, and those of people watching the ceremony on a tiny TV screen in Nairobi.

Be Professional & Ethical

Photo by onkelWhen documenting an event through imagery, the audience is placing their trust in you to capture an accurate portrayal of what’s going on. This requires your ethical judgement to capture “true” images, not those that could mislead the viewer in any way. You shouldn’t have subjects pose (unless it’s explicitly stated to be a portrait), and you need to minimize the impact that your presence has on the subject’s actions. You can read more about this in our article on Understanding and Appreciating the Basics of Photojournalism.

Get It Right In-Camera

Photo by Lars PlougmannFinally, nowhere is getting an image correct in-camera more important than in documentary photography. Post-production shouldn’t be used to alter the image, remove/add elements, or airbrush out certain parts. Basic adjustments to exposure/white balance/sharpness are generally acceptable, but you should stop there.For this reason, be sure to compose images as best you can in-camera. Plan particular shots beforehand if there’s something specific you know you’ll want to capture, and consider taking a large number of photos to maximise the chance of one or two being “just right”.

Types Of Photography. Documentary Photography

(c) Alfred Eisenstaedt

The genre of Documentary Photography was born in the end of the 19th century and was connected with such names asPeter Henry Emerson,Lewis W. Hine,Edward CurtisandKarl Bulla. But till nowadays this term has been absent in the professional photographic language. So,what is Documentary Photography?It's a genre, which reveals occurrences and events, usually of thesocial character. It unites the aims of photographic artandphotojournalism. There are the following kinds of photo documentary:chronicles,street photography, typologyand others, though these differentiations are rather relative and don't have obvious borders.

(c) Peter Henry Emerson● As a rule, documentary photography isa series of shotson the concrete topic

represented in the chronological order.● It's also typical for this genre to be amplified withthe text, describing the subject, place

and time. The text can be either minimal or detailed and usually it is the work of the photographer himself.

● It's also not about a concrete period oftime-Edward Curtis's photo researches about the life of American Indians lasted for decades.

(c) Edward Curtis Aims Of Documentary Photography Documentary photography is now beyond simple narrative fixing of the burning issues of the day, it becomes more and more subjective. The author's view and style are highly appreciated -

Martin Parr, for example, completely changed theMagnum's attitude to photography and this world.(c) Lewis W. Hine

By the way, it was American chronicle photographers, who managed to show that the art can play its role in solution ofsocial problems. In the first half of the 20th centuryLewis W. Hine exposed the immorality, horrors of child labor and homelessness.Jacob Riispublished the book "How The Other Half Lives", in which he revealed the life of New-York slums. Their photos became the material evidence of social injustice and the cause of the reforms the society needed. To show the injustice of the world and to act so that the situation would be changed to the best. That was the aim of the photojournalists, who created an international cooperative agency "Magnum" after the World War II, in 1947 in Paris. Its founders were such acknowledged masters of documentary photography asRobert Capa,David Seymour,George RodgerandHenri Cartier-Bresson. Now it has expanded with four editorial offices in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo, and a network of fifteen sub-agents. And it is clear becausesocial reportageis one of the most needed genres in photo documentation. In addition, documentary photography is aunique historical and artistic evidence. Such photos are notable for theirplot culminationand serious issue and leave no one being indifferent. For your attention we offer you famous photographers, who representdifferent viewsonto the documentary photography and develop itsvarious types.

● Documentary essay.Bill Crandall.(the USA)

(c)Bill Crandall "The concept of documentary photography is the shot, which aim is to describe the reality and, perhaps, to transfer some important message or story. However, the European interpretation shows documentary photography as subjective. A documentary photographer is closer to an independent author or even a poet.The main taskconsists in findingthe way of making your ideas visible. So, for a start we need to have the ideas."Relying on the words of the war photographerRobert Capa, he says: "If the shot is not good enough it means:1) a photographer wasn't tooclose to the action;2) a photographer hasn'tread about the eventenough;3) a photographer hasn't had aclose emotional contactwith the object of his photography."

● Subjective Documentary.Jens Olof Lasthein. (Sweden)

(c) Jens Olof Lasthein

"Come closer to the stranger.Enter the new situation.Discover who you are.It is about how to find the balance between the surrounding world and your place in it. How to tell about the reality of the world through your personal truth."

● Documentary Facts As APropaganda.G. Kornelissen(the Netherlands).

(c) G. Kornelissen "Objective documentary photography doesn't exist. A photographer, who insists on it, is naive. Here is always a political, commercial or personal interest. The border between documentary photography and propaganda is very thin. We should learn how to reveal the strength of the propaganda photography visual language. Find the connection betweenMartin ParrandRodchenko. Shooting in different places,take one of the sides: positive or negative. And photograph the objects according to your attitude, using the instruments of propaganda."

(c) David Gillanders However, documentary photography should perform the main function -information. It should be direct and truthful to become the unique historical and artistic evidence, creatingthe archive of time. Read more:http://www.shotaddict.com/tips/article_Types+Of+Photography.+Documentary+Photography.html#ixzz1mFqFnzOX