Truth

When I look back to my first attempts at photography, it's pretty amazing how bad I was. In truth, I just didn't get it. I had no clue what it was that made a photograph great. I could always see it in others photos, but I was oblivious to why my photos always looked like crap. I knew how to use the camera in all of its technical aspects. I had read all there was about composition and “rules of photography”, but even then my photos always left me feeling empty. It took me a few years, but one day it just clicked.

It was people.

I was missing the human element. Once I realized this I began a much larger forray into documentary portraiture and street photography.

Anyway, you probably wondering where am I going with this. Well, it is not uncommon for people to question the genre of documentary photography and whether or not is should be considered art anymore. It seems that many view it much in the same way as betamax. A dead ancient medium. In response to these types of attitude, I found a great article in defense of street photography by Jeremy Hogan:

Someone asked me … why are you shooting in that style of photography it’s dead? What she meant, I suppose is, since there was already a 100 year or so history of documentary photography then why should anyone bother to photograph what’s already been photographed in a played out dead art form. She also meant anyone can take a photo but only a genius can create things like “conceptual art” or make art based on “post-modern” theories. She said documentary photographs are just commercial art but not a fine art anyway. What she was also telling me is that just taking a straight documentary photo is a useless pursuit because photography has to be weighed down by intellectual gimmicks or it can’t competes with new forms of art … whatever those are. And then the last thing … she told me I was exploiting people with my photos just like those war photographers. “


Funny that she makes a connection between commercial art and documentary photography. I would argue to say that it's anything but that. Documentary photography (at least in my mind) aims to tell a story. To reveal a truth. It is to show the emotions and energy that we may so often miss in life.



Hogan goes on to say, “there is no other art form like it for helping us see our world in different ways and also to make us question our assumptions. Besides, reality is something often absent in our celebrity and entertainment driven media in America. “

If the last sentence doesn't sound familiar to at least somebody then I dont know what does.

If all else fails, I'm sure the masses will be fully content with the "reality" of upskirts of britney spears and the anorexic catwalk charm of Mary-Kate Olsen.

I'll stick with the truth of the ordinary human life.

If your interested in reading Hogan's full article, take a look.