Sunday 9 March 2014

Making sense of documantary

Exercise 20 - read the article 'Making Sense of Documentary Photography' by James Curtis.
Curtis contextualises the work of the FSA photographers within a tradition of early 20th century documentary and touches on the issue f the FSA photographers methods and intentions. What is you view on this? Is these any sense in winch the FSA photographers exploited their subjects?

Curtis defines documentary photographs as "conscious acts of persuasion" with the most accomplished photographers having "a fervent desire to let images tell a story". Interestingly he doesn't say 'tell the truth' or 'tell a true story'.

Whilst there were 11 FSA photographers who worked on the project, Curtis only mentions 4 in his paper, namely, Dorthea Lange, Authur Rothestein, Walker Evans and Russell Lee. Lange, he mentions only en passant, when discussing the numerous images taken by each photographer and the governments requirement for all images to be submitted. The importance of these collective images being that the photo-shoot can be viewed in its entirety, thus it is possible to interpret the thought-process (methodology) of the photographer in developing the images. On this basis, Curtis is very critical of the other 3 photographers providing specific examples (images) where they have clearly staged their images to ensure they deliver the necessary information required to justify the passing of the New Deal Reform Bill.

The examples chosen by Curtis clearly demonstrate that the individuals in the images have been exploited, either directly - the Mexican family being subsequently portrayed as dirty, sickly and unfit to look after themselves; or indirectly - Christmas dinner in Iowa, where the family unit was manipulated to communicate extreme poverty.


In summary:

With only this paper from Curtis it is difficult to know whether he thought all of the FSA work was deliberately corrupted to push the New Deal through; or whether he particularly objects to just the 3 photographers mentioned. As part of my research into the FSA I will be reviewing the images in the Library of Congress. (At this moment in time, it is proving quite difficult because the site faults out on the second page...)

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