I had a conversation today with a photographer whose documentary on immigration was recently published. We were looking over his contact sheets from a trip to Europe where he continues the project.
One of the questions we were tasked to answer was "what is a documentary photo and what is a news photo? "How are they different, if they are? How are they similar? Does it matter?
This is one of those academic questions that professors toss into a class hoping there would be enthusiastic disagreement generating strong emotional discussion about the role of photography to communicate.
Our neutral agreement was news photos have a singular purpose, tell the story of the moment. That doesn’t exclude them from becoming part of a documentary project just as a single image in a project may be a great news photo.
Documentary photos are usually the images that radiate from the impact of the news photo. They complete the storytelling that begins with the single image much as Eugene Smith’s Minamata photo story is known for the photo of deformed Tomoko Uemura cradled in the arms of her mother for a bath. Smith’s singular image is arguably the most striking and effective environmental photo ever published. Its news value expresses with clarity and emotion the human impact of the ignorance and pollution.
The greatness in Smith’s reporting is the series of additional images he uses to complete the story of what happened in Minamata. They become the document of history. Yet, none of them have immediate impact of the Eumura photo. It requires the viewer to ask "What happened here?" with one of the tenets of reporting contained in the question. When told the answers, the reporting sequence is completed with who, what, when, where, why and how. WWWWWH.
The images radiating from Smith’s most famous Minamata photo do not elicit the reporting mantra because they are part of a greater document and lack strong news impact. Their importance in communicating the entire story or forcing the viewer to ask more questions is weaker than the required strength of a news photo.
The harsh reality of childbirth in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan is shown in a pair of slide shows at Time.com. Included in the two sets of images is a rare moment of visual clarity that begs asking about the subject, to bring the photo to import as a news photo.
Photographer Alixandra Fazzina traveled to Afghanistan, home to the highest maternal mortality rate in the world where she photographed a woman, Siamoy, breast-feeding her one-month-old child. Just as Smith’s Eumera photo pays homage to Michelangelo’s Pieta, Fazzina’s photo with classic composition and lighting elevates the photo from documentary to a striking news photo that holds the viewers attention enough to require questions.
"Death and Life in Sierra Leone" by Anna Kari is linear storytelling with strong individual images creating a body of emotion at their conclusion that compels the viewer to question not only the political, economic and medical reasons for what happens but their own involvement, or lack of involvement, in the tragedy. Kari’s photo series carries all the news value of a single image yet there isn’t one image that stands alone, forcing the viewer to ask wwwwwh. It doesn’t make the series any less important or Kari a less talented photographer. Nor does it lessen the impact of the series. Kari’s story is probably more powerful, more emotional, and tear inducing than Fazzinna’s.
Now for the professorial hat. When do singular images become news photos and when does their collective impact document the surrounding story of the single image in the story? How does a photographer approach documentary photography mindful of the power of strong news photography to pull in a viewer’s interest? Is there room for news photography in documentary photography? Is it important the news photos communicate with single images of dynamic impact?
Wikipedia: Eugene Smith | Minamata | Michelangelo’s Pieta
Eugene Smith Links: Google Images | Masters of Photography and here | Uemera photo
Alixandra Fazzina Links: Time Magazine Story | At Lightstalkers | Personal Site | Her publisher | Oxfam
Anna Kari Links: Time Magazine Story | Personal Site | Documentography
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[...] Most striking of the images is the above frame mimicing the iconic Pieta by Michelangelo. It carries on in the tradition of Eugene Smith’s Minamata photo and Alixandra Fazzina’s Afghanistan mother photo. Both are discussed in an earlier post. [...]
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