Book Review: Documentary Photography Reconsidered
Selection from The Family Imprint, Nancy Borowick, 2013 Courtesy of the artist.
Michell Bogre: Documentary Photography Revisited
By ClydaJane Dansdill
Photography has become an increasingly democratic medium in recent decades. Digital availability and instant communication prevails in our modern world. Anyone with a cell phone can utilize their device as an implement to document with, be it for the sake of memory, evidence, narrative, or witness. This pervasive normalization of photography pulls the definition of this kind of capturing in multiple directions, complicating its context, and calling for theory on what suffices as art in all that is created via documentation.
Copyright lawyer and photographer Michelle Bogre is an enthusiastic advocate of this medium, especially when it is used to document, bear witness, stake evidence, and execute non-fictional narrative. Her book Documentary Photography Reconsidered is an in-depth approach to re-framing and divulging a new discussion around the purpose, legacy, and meaning of this historical method of life-capture.
One should address the challenge of improving their photography skills from many angles - personal, historical, aesthetic, - and it is in this interdisciplinary manner that Michelle Bogre builds her defense for this versatile medium.
Rich with insights and objective advice about what is original, genuine, and raw in the practice of documenting reality, the book is a superb addition to any creative person’s collection. Interviews with photographers, both mainstream and marginal, are included among creative assignments, relevant historical discoveries regarding procedure, and commentary on the political and technical modes of process and etiquette.
Bogre writes from within the audience that witnesses the battle of document as fact or document as art. She begins by defining the medium around the work of such documentary pioneers as Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange. She meanders through the varying definitions assigned to documentary photography, and discusses the human relationship with reality via the act of photography -- is truth witnessed or created? What differentiates photojournalism from documentary photography? If a photograph is staged, can it still present some kind of authenticity?
Bogre calls photojournalism a “subset of, or cousin to, documentary”. Photojournalism, being anchored to the news world, must follow strict codes of ethics.
Documentary, in turn, is an amplified medium that allows for more experimentation and speculation. Anyone can document righteously - it is a mode of taking and making that does not have to be wielded by the hand of a seasoned journalist or professional photographer to be legitimate. But, is it a matter of subject or a matter of approach that allows a photo to suffice? Photography is essential to public memory, whether it records, memorializes, distorts, or all three. It is a central facet of history itself. It compels us to act. It reminds us of what has come to pass.
The book is not your average textbook or comprehensive history, but instead manifests as a thoughtfully curated field guide. While it aims to broaden the historical knowledge of documentary photography, there are intermittent reminders that this type of medium often leaves the spectator with more questions than answers. The intent of the book is not necessarily to supply a single, all-inclusive definition to documentary photography, but to bring new light to it, verify its many contexts, and engage in theories surrounding the practice, process, and cultural progression of non-verbal documentation.
This collection of observations, facts, and vibrant, diverse testimonials from photographers, philosophers, writers, and critics, boasts carefully chosen examples from our world’s vast collection of photography. Bogre’s approach is impressively unbiased and evenhanded, and she adequately builds a comprehensive anthology on a medium of art that has multiple, malleable definitions and endeavors.
Author’s website:
Publisher’s website:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/documentary-photography-reconsidered-9781350031647/
