WHY do you like DOCUMENTARY photography?

<p>What do you like about documentary photography?<br />

<p>For those of us who use(d) photography as a tool in the pursuit of other goals, documentary photography is "all there is", in the sense that the goal is to make a record of observable reality that is as close as human technology will allow. Like crime-scene photography, one is ethically obliged to make an effort to record what is seen (and unseen, as in recording other than visible light spectra) as accurately and completely as was possible.It's not a question of "liking" documentary photography. When such a mindset is instilled, it can be hard to be "arty," I will confess.</p>

<p>No postmodern twaddle about "reality" is relevant or wanted here. If you don't believe in observable reality, go walk off a cliff.</p>

<p>Is your question Why do you like documentary photography? or What do you like about documentary photography? These are two totally different questions.</p>

<p>"Does Tom Tom exist?" is yet another question</p>

<p>Well Clive, don't know about this one but I found one earlier on ;-)</p><div></div>

<p><em>No postmodern twaddle about "reality" is relevant or wanted here. <br /> </em></p>

<p>You wish. Expect a wave of "photography can never capture reality" comments. (Not from me though, I see the documentary aspect of photography is its greatest virtue.)</p>

<p>I like to do documentary photography because I enjoy the challenge of capturing a visually attractive, descriptive, to the point image about an event, a situation, a person, or a location. I love to do it with existing light to capture the mood.</p>

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<p>I thought this would be easy to answer. <br>

Whether it is a single shot or a series, documentary photography does not allow you to simply observe and accept. You're always left wondering, guessing, reacting, thinking. <br>

Capturing reality is never so much a priority as much as evoking, or suggesting a particular perspective. That's kind of the short of it for me. I'm also too damn lazy to write....</p>

<p>Post modern twaddle...:) Hey if you don't know the difference between recordation and reality, what can one say.</p>

<p>I think "documentary" photography has the ability to capture something more real than reality, that is: truth.<br>

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Okay that totally sounds like artistic drival, so rather than shut up, or better yet, not submit this comment, I'll just blather on for a bunch more words.<br>

I don't remember who the hell wrote it, Bryan Petersen I think, he analogized Michelangelo's famous quote about sculpture, "I'm removing rock until I reveal the sculpture within" to photography, regarding removing elements (including color) until you reveal the photograph within.<br>

See the world happens really, really fast. Most people experience it at some twenty-four-odd frame a second, which is like 16 fps faster than my D700 even with the battery pack. And our big ass brains, they process all of that in real time.<br>

So a photograph, freezing action, any action, presents our brains to experience reality as it never has before, it gives our brains a moment, to stop and smell the roses as it were. And that makes the photograph a profound communication vehicle because we're able to eliminate all the noise and just focus on the MOMENT.<br>

an extension of this is why Black and White is so profound for photography, because by removing all the colors, you're distilling out another layer of noise enabling our minds to just see what the photographer intended.<br>

And in the case of documentary photography, that is, the world, truth, the human circumstance and all that lot, which as people living it, we never get to notice, because 24 fps is too fast to experience truth. Fundamentally, it's why a picture is worth 1000 words and a movie is still worth only $8.95</p>

 

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<p>If you don't believe in observable reality, go walk off a cliff.</p>

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<p>I believe in observable reality, but I also believe that we observe reality like the 5 blind men and the elephant. So one person's reality is not in line with anothers.</p>

<p>I also think that the reality is that Tom Tom is Gone Gone</p>