Documentary 1

“That’s a sophisticated, misleading word,and not really clear”

(Interview with Walker Evans, Art in America, Leslie Katz. 1971)

Document means evidence. It comes from the medieval termdocumentum which was a term for an official paper. This would contain evidence that could not be questioned, a truthful account backed by the authority of law.

As a genre in photography it is associated with the same significance and authority.

‘The Great Chartists Meeting on Kennington Common’, William Edward Kilburn. 1848.

The historical significance invested a photograph’s status as a truthful and objective representation of what had happened.

Photograph of Jacob Riis in The Making of an American. 1904

Jacob Riis

Bandit’s RoostFebruary 12th 1888

Gangs of New York

Martin Scorsese, 2002.

Jacob Riis, Five Cents Lodging, Bayard Street, c. 1889

Jacob Riis, Peddler. 1890

Lewis HinePoor home. New York City tenement

Lewis Hine, Woman washing clothes. 1909-12

Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine, Doffer Girl in New England Mill. 1909

Margaret Bourke-WhiteSharecropper’s Home. 1937

Farm Security Association.

Roy Stryker

Dorothea Lange.

Dorothea LangeMigrant Mother. 1936

“When Dorothea took that picture, that was the ultimate. She never surpassed it. To me it was the picture of Farm Security. She has all the suffering of mankind in her, but all the perseverance too. A restraint and a strange courage.”

Roy Stryker