All photography is documentary by nature.
She was first and foremost a photographer, best known for her portraits and documentary photographs of American life and society. But one can also think of her as an inventor, an archivist and a historian, as well as a writer and teacher. After experimenting with sculpture in her early twenties, Abbott left America for Paris where she began her photographic career in 1923 as the darkroom assistant and apprentice to Man Ray. Later she established her own portrait studio, where she photographed many of the celebrated literary and artistic figures of the day. She argued that, by the very nature of its realistic image, photography was documentary and, as such, found its best expression in clearly focused, highly detailed images.