Visual Journalism
March 30, 2010
Documentary Photography
The impact that photographs can have is illuminated in a look back at iconic images.
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“Documentary Photographers Have Their Say in Words and Pictures”
– Glenn RugaGlenn Ruga, the director of SocialDocumentary.net, spoke about photography during a conference examining the coverage of trauma held at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism in February 2009. In explaining how his Web site is used by photojournalists today, he traveled back in time to offer an abbreviated history of documentary photography and how its practitioners used imagery to inform people about events they couldn’t see for themselves. He spoke, too, about the impact their photography had in inspiring change. Edited excerpts from his talk follow, alongside photographs he used to illustrate his points:
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Other excerpts from Ruga’s presentation appear in the Winter 2009 article “Visual Storytelling About the Human Condition”These examples just skim the surface of the rich history of documentary photography and its uses. In the world of human rights, there are perpetrators and survivors, there are journalists who inform us about these violations, researchers who give us data and analysis, advocates who work for policy change to prevent violations and support the victims. There are artists, filmmakers and writers who document and help us understand the abusers and the abused; there are lawyers, judges and lawmakers who provide the legal context. And there are photographers who document the abuses, honor the victims, and tell their stories of abuse, survival and justice.
Sudan, 2001. With only one polio case in 2001 and none in 2002, Sudan, Africa’s largest country, has now been declared polio-free. Photograph from the book “The End of Polio” (Bulfinch) 2003 Sebastião Salgado/ Amazonas - Contact Press Images
Dead confederate soldier with gun. Petersburg, Virginia. 1865. Photo by Mathew Brady.
In this early photograph of the Civil War by Mathew Brady we see a very horrific event in the history of wars and of this country, and it’s Brady who has brought the horrors of this war to the consciousness of the world. Even back then, though, Brady and his assistants would rearrange subjects on the battlefield to create a more powerful representation of what was going on. At the time the American public was not very interested in looking at these images. Not until much later, into the 20th century, was the American public willing to look at them.
Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age 32. Nipomo, California. 1936. Photo by Dorothea Lange.
Dorothea Lange’s well-known photographs of families who were fleeing the Dust Bowl during the Depression were also part of the FSA effort to document what was happening in the United States.
Floyd Burroughs, cotton sharecropper. Hale County, Alabama. 1935-’36. Photo by W. Eugene Smith.
Allie Mae Burroughs, wife of cotton sharecropper. Hale County, Alabama. 1935-’36. Photo by W. Eugene Smith.
During the Great Depression, Walker Evans, another great American photographer, was associated with the Farm Security Administration (FSA). His images of sharecroppers in Alabama were ones he took while he was working with writer James Agee, with whom he did the book “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” It is one of the great American documentary books about this time.
Addie Card, 12 years old. Spinner in North Pownal, Vermont. 1910. Photo by Lewis Hine.
Moving on in the history of photography, we have Lewis Hine, a very influential photographer who documented the plight of child labor at the beginning of the 20th century, mostly in New York. It’s his work that really changed a lot of laws related to child labor. Not only was he a fantastic photographer, he used this work in a very deliberate way. Hired by the National Child Labor Committee, he created a portfolio and sent it to lawmakers in New York to influence policy on child labor. Eventually laws were passed almost directly due to his photographs.
The Amar Jyoti Rehabilitation and Research Center in New Delhi accommodates 540 children. In 2002, more that 80 percent of all new polio cases worldwide occurred in India. Photograph from the book “The End of Polio” (Bulfinch) 2003 Sebastião Salgado/ Amazonas - Contact Press Images
Now we have photographers such as Sebastião Salgado documenting polio throughout the world. He uses his work very deliberately to effect policy change by making sure people in power see it.