Social documentary photography
The social documentary photography is a socially critical direction of photography dedicated to the living conditions of underprivileged or disadvantaged people.
Origin of the genus
Social documentary photography came to the fore in the history of photography and art , in particular through the photographic practice of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Several photographers who made photo history took photos for the FSA, such as B. Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange . They impressively documented the living conditions of poor farmers for the FSA, whose economic livelihoods were threatened. These works set the tone for the photographic documentation of social problems.
style
The photographic tradition, mainly summarized in the 20th century under the term social documentarism (also known as "social photography"), is regularly devoted to 'social groups' that have socio-economic and cultural similarities.
The motivation of the photographers are regularly as shameful, disadvantageous, unfair or harmful living and / or working conditions as well as poverty. The examples are diverse: child labor, child neglect, hunger, homelessness, poverty among social classes, children and the elderly, working conditions in Brazilian gold mines, living in satellite towns, impoverished farmers, dangerous industrial working conditions, work slaves, politically unstable or authoritarian regimes, etc.
The intentions of the photographic authors range between emphatic documentation and concrete accusations of social inequality. Despite all the differences in the handling of the camera, the pictures of these authors have one thing in common: the poor, outsiders and social lower classes are not portrayed as exotic objects, but rather in participatory observation. The photographers do not show poverty as a flaw, but rather its dignity. They give the bottom of society, those who only appear in statistics as an anonymous collective, their individual - often proudly exalted - face.
Social documentary photography is not a celibate, sober factual recording of things, but rather it is trend photography. She deliberately wants to provoke, but with reality: the documentary power of the images is linked to the desire for insight and political and social change.
Social documentary photography is still predominantly 'black and white' to this day. There are often aesthetic reasons for this, but on the other hand the color rather one-dimensional photos appear more direct and impressive to many authors and viewers.
The photographs created in this way are always to be understood as a 'group of works' intended for 'publication'. They require an explanatory text, but at least a title that names the issue or topic for classification and evaluation.
history
Pioneering time
As early as the 19th century, life situations of the lower classes were the subject of photography and worker photography . Henry Mayhew and John Brinny publish the book London Labor And The London Poor (labor and poverty in London ) a representation of the location of the London workers. Photographs were used to illustrate the volume. Thomas Annan published Photographs of the Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow 1868–77 (photographs of the alleys and streets of Glasgow from 1868 to 1877), a documentation of the urban situation in the slums of Glasgow . Another English example is the book Street Life in London published by Smith and Thompson in 1877 , which also documents social life. Social documentary photography was probably born in England, as industrialization and the consequences that went with it were the furthest advanced here.
In the USA , at the turn of the century, two outstanding photographers worked for people on the fringes of society, Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine . For them the camera became an instrument of prosecution against social injustice. Jacob Riis documented the living conditions of the unemployed and homeless in New York in 1890 ( How The Other Half Lives ). Another topic for him was the fate of immigrants, many of whom lived in extreme poverty in the New York slums. Riis clearly takes sides for the people he has photographed and appeals to the social conscience of society with his work. The same applies to Lewis Hine, who also drew attention to the situation of immigrants and, as a photographer for the National Child Labor (National Committee on Child Labor), campaigned against child labor, which was widespread in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century. Both photographers had political influence with their work. Riis' commitment to the people in the Mulberry Bend neighborhood led to its demolition. School buildings and educational programs can also be traced back to Riis. Lewis Hine's work resulted in a law against child labor, which was canceled a short time later because of the USA's entry into the First World War .
For his part, the German painter and photographer Heinrich Zille also pursued a photographic documentation of everyday life in Berlin around the turn of the century (1890 to 1910) . These are not specifically socially critical photographs, but to a large extent they depict the lives of the poor and the marginalized (significant titles include: shoemaker's workshop, sleeping homeless, Charlottenburg - brushwood collectors, woman with a wooden pram, peddler with dog team; there are many pictures the desolation of the Berlin workers' quarters again).
20th century
Great depression and crises
Roy Stryker resumed the American tradition for the Farm Security Administration during the mid-1930s . The FSA, a US government agency founded in 1935 as the "Resettlement Administration", looked after poor farmers who were threatened in their livelihood against the background of the 'collapse' of American agriculture. You mediated z. B. Loans and offered training courses. Stryker, originally a professor of economics, was head of the FSA's public relations department, took photos himself and initiated the FSA's photo-documentary project.
Walker Evans , Dorothea Lange , Arthur Rothstein and others photographed impoverished farmers, their families, their living and working conditions in this context. The result was a collection of at least 130,000 recordings. They were used for the public relations work of the FSA and were the basis for the book "Land of Free" (Land der Free), which had a lasting impact on the public in favor of the situation of American farmers. Photographs such as Lange's “Mother of a Migrant Worker's Family with Her Children” (1936) were created, and are widely published to this day.
In connection with the photo documentation of the FSA, the term 'social documentary photography' was coined. Roy E. Stryker explained the documentary photography pursued by the FSA with the sentence: “The main difference between the photographer who is mistakenly called the 'pictorialist' and the one who is equally falsely called a documentarist is that the first embellishes a situation or taking pictures because of its beauty, while photography serves the other as a means to an end. ”In Germany, the workers' photography movement emerged a few years earlier . In view of the National Socialist dictatorship from 1933 onwards, it did not have a long existence. Their protagonists were politically committed amateur photographers . They documented the social situation of the workers and the activities of the workers' movement. A well-known representative of this photographic path in Germany, even if he was not a member of the workers' photographers, is Walter Ball Hauser , who photographed unemployed people, war invalids and urban proletarian children in Hanover in the early 1930s.
For the great German photographer August Sander , the social is in the foreground of his work. In the portfolio "People of the 20th Century", Sander documented the German "estates" of his time with a sociological perspective. He chose people or groups who appeared to be exemplary, who represent the different social levels ('between the homeless and the bank director'). For these photos, Sander tried to be as objective as possible - and in contrast to classic social documentary photography, he took photos without any charge or interest in wanting to change the life situation of the sitter.
An English pioneer of socially committed photography is Bill Brandt . Brandt was an important artist as a photographer. He enjoys an international reputation especially for his experimental nude studies. Brandt settled in England in 1931 and worked for several magazines, for which he wrote reports on the people affected by the global economic crisis . In 1936 he published the illustrated book "The English at Home", in which he pointedly portrayed the English class society. While traveling to the Midlands and Northern England, he single-mindedly photographed the aftermath of the Great Depression . With these works, Bill Brandt created an independent social documentary work of high standing.
Post 1945 crisis
After 1945, committed, collectively organized social documentary photography - with the exception of England, where the tradition lasted a little longer - could no longer really gain a foothold. The rabid anti-communism of the McCarthy era had condemned left-wing, committed social documentary photography with the verdict of evil. Great documentary photographers of the post-war period, such as W. Eugene Smith , Diane Arbus , Robert Frank , William Klein or Mary Ellen Mark, were either lone fighters or they were forced to work as story suppliers for the major illustrated magazines (especially Life ). Squeezed into the economic logistics of increasing circulation, there was hardly any room for political outsider positions. Nevertheless, even in the second half of the 20th century, photographers addressed social issues. At the end of the 1960s, W. Eugene Smith documented the fate of the inhabitants of the Japanese fishing village of Minamata , who became ill as a result of mercury poisoning and, to a large extent, were crippled.
During the 1970s there was an increased sensitivity to social issues in Germany, which was also reflected in photography. A vivid example of this socially committed documentary photography is the volume "Rettet Eisenheim", in which the (also photographic) commitment against the demolition of a miners' settlement in Oberhausen is presented.
21st century
An important contemporary social documentary photographer is the Brazilian Sebastião Salgado , who z. B. published an impressive documentation on industrial work with his work “Arbeiter” (1993). Another central theme of his work is the global phenomenon of migration, for which he presented the photo books “Children of Migration” (2000) and “Migrants” (2000). With both documentaries he documents the almost indescribable refugee misery in many countries around the world and contributes to a differentiated public awareness and supports the work of UNICEF . Salgado has been working on the Genesis project since 2004, documenting untouched landscapes and their flora and fauna. After nine years of work on this project, the Natural History Museum in London showed a selection of 250 photos in 2013 and published a large-format illustrated book designed by his wife.
A younger representative of social documentary photography is Manuel Rivera-Ortiz , who as an independent photographer documents the living conditions of people in developing countries. Shaped by his own experience of growing up in poverty in rural Puerto Rico in the 1970s, Rivera-Ortiz describes his work as the Celebration of Life , in poverty. Rivera-Ortiz photographed Cuba and compared the conditions he saw there with the Puerto Rico of his youth, as well as India, where he documented the dignity of the Dalit caste ("untouchables") or the living conditions of the Aymara in the arid plateau of Bolivia. He has also published works on Kenya, Turkey or Thailand.
At the same time, many amateur and professional photographers work on social problems. Here, poverty, working conditions, unemployment or homelessness are still on the agenda. The world-famous Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov published 'Case History', an illustrated book about the homeless in Kharkiv .
In 2005 the Krefeld Museum Haus Lange exhibited the artistic work of Lukas Einsele, a documentation on the subject of mine victims in the tradition of conceptual art in a number of countries. Einsele systematically photographed landmine victims, the affected landscape and the defusing of landmines. The victims, among others, have their say in an extensive text section. (Book publication: One Step Beyond, Ostfildern-Ruit 2005)
In the summer of 2009, the Ludwig Museum in Budapest showed a show of social documentary photography from the late 1920s and 1930s under the title “Things are drawing to a crisis”. Also in 2009, the photographer, critic and curator Jorge Ribalta put together an exhibition on the history of documentary photography in the 20th century at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona under the title “Universal Archive”. In 2010, a major international exhibition on the history of the social documentary workers' photography movement took place at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Attention in art
Since the late 1970s, social documentary photography has been receiving increasing attention from art galleries and museums alongside artistic photography . Luc Delahaye , Manuel Rivera-Ortiz and the members of the VII Photo Agency are among the social documentary photographers whose pictures are regularly exhibited in galleries and museums.
Social work and photography
In the training of social work and social pedagogy , photography is often used to document and raise awareness of social grievances. Often it is also an instrument for partisan social work that wants to create publicity. In this context, the genre is also called social photography.
Border areas and related genres
Without committed support for the victims of social inequality and social grievances, photographers also turn to social issues. Diane Arbus and Tina Barney are examples here . While Arbus created haunting images of disabled people and other people on the fringes of society, Barney succeeded in documenting the living conditions of the white upper class in the New England states of the USA .
In the literal sense of the word, social documents are diverse documentations from life in certain cities, landscapes or cultures. The examples are as varied as the possibilities. Roman Vishniac can be mentioned as a representative, who captured Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust with his photographs (Verschwundene Welt, Munich, 1996).
Another genre that is close to the processes and results of social documentary photography can be found in folklore photography (which often depicts people in precarious situations, but aims to document, for example, declining ways of life or production methods, traditions, forms of living and clothing ). A notable representative of this photographic direction is the Becher student Martin Rosswog (Martin Rosswog, Munich 2005). For many years he has systematically photographed interiors in rural areas in particular. In this way he is given a way of life that disappears when taking photographs (e.g. in the Outer Hebrides , Romania and Russia , but also in Germany, e.g. farms in Münsterland , 'Schultenhöfe', Munich 2005).
The war photography - for example, by Mathew Brady , Alexander Gardner or later by Robert Capa - shows how the works of the American Civil War photographer denounce the misery of war, and can thus also in the narrow sense of social documentary photography are attributed.
In the context of social movements ( 1968 , environmental, anti-nuclear movement and others), a form of documentary photography has also established itself, as exemplified in the work of Michael Ruetz . From the mid-1960s he accompanied the student movement at the time and took photos of typical things from that time.
The photojournalism in turn often takes an interest in social issues, but is not to be understood in any case as a socially engaged documentary, as most of the corresponding reports are likely to be due to one-off orders.
The street photography is a genre includes designation of photography that many photographers and styles. In general, this means a photograph that is created in public space, looking into the streets, into shops or cafes, picking out groups of passers-by or individuals, often as a snapshot, but also as an essay-like sequence and milieu study.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Genesis. In: Amazonas Images , (photos disabled).
- ^ Phil Coomes: Sebastiao Salgado's Genesis project. In: BBC , (English), November 3, 2011, with photo series.
- ^ Exhibition: Sebastião Salgado: Genesis. ( Memento from August 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: Natural History Museum , 2013.
- ↑ Video: Genesis by Sebastião Salgado - Taschen Verlag. In: Redaktion42 / YouTube , May 16, 2013, 7 min.
- ^ Museo Reina Sofía: The Worker-Photography Movement
- ↑ Alejandro Malo: Documentary Art , ZoneZero. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
swell
- Social documentary photography in the USA, Library of Photography, RJ Doherty, Lucerne 1974.
- Save Eisenheim, Bielefeld 1973.
- Thinking about photography, Berthold Beiler, Leipzig 1977.
- On photography, Susan Sontag, Vienna, 1978.
- Homeless, Hamburg 1989.
- Case History, Boris Mikhailov, Berlin 1999.
- Abigail Solomon-Godeau : Who speaks like that? Some questions about documentary photography , in: Herta Wolf (ed.): Discourses of Photography. Photo criticism at the end of the photographic age , Frankfurt am Main 2003, pp. 53–74.
- Starl, Timm: Documentary photography , article in: Hubertus Butin (ed.): DuMont's glossary of terms for contemporary art , Cologne 2002, pp. 73–77.
- Stop the world. Günter Burkart and Nikolaus Meyer, Weinheim / Basel 2015.
literature
- Douglas Harper: Visual Sociology: An Introduction (Photographs as Social Science Data), 2012, ISBN 978-0415778954 .
- Michael Leicht: How Katie Tingle refused to pose properly and Walker Evans didn't resent it. Transcript, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 978-3-89942-436-2 .
- Rudolf Stumberger : Class Pictures. Social documentary photography 1900 - 1945. UVK, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-639-7 .
- Rudolf Stumberger: Class Pictures II. Social Documentary Photography 1945 - 2000. UVK, Konstanz 2010, ISBN 978-3-86764-281-1 .