Documentary Photography
By: by the editors of Time-Life Books.
Contributors: Carole Kismaric (Picture editor); Anne Horan (Text editor)
Series: Life Library of Photography #14
Publisher: Time-Life Books
Published: 1972
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 241
Subjects: Documentary photography
Genres: Non-fiction
First sentence: Documentary photography: a depiction of the real world by a photographer whose intent is to communicate something of importance -- to make a comment -- that will be understood by the viewer.
Description: The term documentary photography came into use during the depression years, when telling pictures of poverty-stricken farmers awakened Americans to the need for social reform. And in many minds this field of photography still suggests picture of the Dust Bowl, of rural hardship and urban slums.

Yet as this book shows, there is, and always has been, far more to documentary photography than the recording of the world's ills. For there is much more to document than suffering and poverty: faraway places and exotic peoples, quirks of nature and society, the whole gamut of emotions and relationships. The subject matter is, indeed, almost unlimited.

Then is every photograph a documentary? Not really, for it must convey a message that sets it apart from a landscape, a portrait, a street scene. It may record an event, but the event must have some general significance, more than the specific significance of a news photo. It may record character or emotion -- but again, of some general social significance; it is more than personally revelatory, as a portrait is.

Yet whether it shows us family life in Paris or in Maine, the central square of Peking or a stretch of U.S. Route 66, a dive in New York's slums or a village café in Hungary, a sharecropper's cabin or a suburban living room, the documentary photograph tells us something important about our world -- and in the best examples, makes us think about the world in a whole new way.
Notes: Bibliography, p. 239; Index, p. 241.
Table of contents: label: 1
title: The Authentic View
pagenum: 9; label: 2
title: Crusaders with Cameras
pagenum: 43; label: 3
title: The Photo League
pagenum: 85; label: 4
title: Honoring Humanity
pagenum: 119; label: 5
title: Critics of Complacency
pagenum: 161; label: 6
title: The Personal Document
pagenum: 211; title: Bibliography and Acknowledgements
pagenum: 239; title: Picture Credits
pagenum: 240; title: Index
pagenum: 241