Exercise : Analysing social documentary

Research at least two of the preceding photographers ..



LEWIS HINE

ANALYSING SOCIAL DOCUMENTARY

I have chosen two pictures to dicuss, one by Lewis Hine and the other by Jacob Riis.  Both pictures I like to look at.. and well the first one very familiar to me as I expect to many.

Lewis Hine was commissioned to photograph the building of the empire state building – my first thoughts are of how dangerous it all looks, my husband is in construction and the things they get up to are bad enough, but I don’t think they have had lunch balanced on a steel.

These pictures do as they say and really document the proceedings.  You feel like you are a part of it and it shows a proper insight.

The workmen having lunch are the subject of the picture, although so is the project as a whole the empire state building.  This is the context – this is the setting – which is very much part of the picture.

As I said before the photographer Lewis Hine was commissioned to do this.

Now did the workmen give their consent, I would say no as it may have been the photographer just saw this from afar and took the shot and they are all very relaxed and not looking at the camera.  However I’m sure they would have consented if asked but the picture may have had a much more staged look.

I feel this picture does have a ‘Hine’ feel about it and looking at the selection of pictures they have a similarity about them.  Most of them show a frieghteningly  lack of safety which makes you tummy churn.

The photograph is very successful  .. it is imfamous anyway but also shows the men relaxing having lunch in the most bizzare circumstances and is a comical juxtaposition.

I feel this picture is an example of social documentary as I feel its life events happening rather than a news event ( although the building of the Empire State would be a news event ) but I feel that these pictures are more about the workers.

The second picture ..  is by Jacob Riis – How the other half lives. – Bandits Roost. 1888.New York.

This book highlighted the conditions in the slums of New York – Riis was a photographer as a pasttime but also found it a useful tool when writing police reports on the New York slums – he was a successful police reporter.

The picture is in one of the dangerous alleys of New York, where all criminal activity took place.  The police would have accompanied the photographer on such outings and shoots so you wonder what the discussions would have been between them as to what they were trying to interpret from the photo .. There is a possibility that he was being paid as a reporter, although a large percentage was taken for his own self.

I feel the people did give their consent as they are all looking at the camera and also because of the long camera exposure you would have more movement in the image if they were not asked to stay still.  But mainly because they all look like they are participating.

I feel the photo does show the dirt and dinge, but maybe not how aggressive the people may have been .. or showing the danger.

These pictures were a social documentation of the situation and lives in the slums.

JACOB RIIS 

The FSA Project - 1935

Walker Evans Images ..  ( couldn't find given link so went to google )

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=walker+evans+images&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=yRnmVOXNEsvkaq3ogNAP&ved=0CBQQsAQ&tbm=isch



Again for the video was unable to find the link given.  so there are two examples below.

Vidoe Link for Walker Evans FSA work is here ....

WALKER EVANS

1935 - 1938 was the height of the depression and the government sent a group of 17 photographers to record the lives of the poor farm workers of the South.

Their photographs were to illustrate the problems.  Evans said to start with he didn't give it too much thought - he just went and did the job taking pictures he wanted and liked.  He didn't realise what a famous record it was to become.

He and Agee visited the deep South and they were not welcome by the landowner or the police who didn't trust them or know what their purpose was, and didn't really want them there at all.

Evans says his photos were not a social protest, but it wasn't supposed to be.  He liked his pictures to tell a story and he did show what was happening, but he wasn't planning to change the world.

In 1941 Agee and Evans produced a book called ... Let us now praise famous men ... it wasn't a success until after the war, when it became famous.

Evans spent the next 50 years recording the American way of life - he says - Photography is actually extremely difficult, realistic is great and rare and sometimes accidental..

Shoot to Kill ...

Get the picture .............THATS A BULLSEYE !!!!!!

and another here ...



DOROTHEA LANGE 

Watch the you tube video ... ( again unable to select video but have chosen this one as an alternative )
which can be seen here ...

Also ... Read piece on page 39-49 of course reader.


I purchased this book .....

DOROTHEA LANGE

Was a 40 year old professional photographer from San Francisco.  On a drive home she was alerted to a ‘pea pickers camp’ sign .. she knew what this meant.

Although the US economy was beginning to recover she knew that tens of millions of people were out of work.  Many turned to vegetable and fruit picking just to make some money.

Lange did drive past the sign but after a while thinking about it took a uturn. She turned at the sign following instinct not reason.

By the time she had reached the tents the rain had eased and almost immediately she began to photograph people. The first a woman and her 4 children beneath a crude tent open to one side.

“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet.. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera but I do remember she asked me no questions”      … I took 6 photos.

She found out the mother was 32 years old .. they were living off frozen vegetables from  the fields and small birds that the children killed ..

Lange knew at this point her images were good but didn’t know how good.. she didn’t take any more of the tents. One of these pictures would become iconic. Perfectly capturing the spirit of the Great Depression.

These pictures showed the plight of the mother and her two children – but they also stood for something bigger.. They captured the predicament that hundreds of thousands of migrant workers found themselves in.

Lange to her dying day did not know the name of this lady also referred to as the Migrant Mother.  ( Although it was found out to be Florence Owens Thompson ).

The great depression was caused by the collapse of the stock market in October 1929.  Job losses were crippling and 1 in 4 Americans were out of work.  Many losing their life savings which made matters worse.

Millions of Americans became homeless and entire families had to live in back alleys and in cars or tents in fields.

Residents of migrant camps also didn’t have any money for food, many suffered starvation. Many of the poor lined up to receive bread from charities. Farm workers were in dire straits all over the country. 

The worst off residents were in the so called dust bowl, covering large parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Mexico which suffered serious drought making the soil infertile and causing dust storms. Up until 1939 the farmers deserted their homesteads and headed for California.

In 1936 the Thompson family had finished picking beets in southern California and they were heading to central California for more work when their car broke down near the peapickers camp.  Whilst trying to repair it they damaged the radiator so then became stuck here at the camp. 

This tent was a temporary set up to protect the family whilst repairing the car.  Lange arrived and took her six photos.

Thompson remained an agricultural migrant – she married a hospital administrator in 1945 who could afford to look after her and her ten children and she had a more comfortable life.

Decades passed when only she and her family knew who she was – the migrant mother – she died In September 1983 and she is buried in Hughson, California and on her headstone says ..

Migrant Mother – a legend of the strength of American Motherhood

Research Point

Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine








UK Social documentary Photographers

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79 )

Frank Meadow Sutcliffe ( 1853 - 1941 )

Henry Peach Robinson  ( 1830 - 1901 )

Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine video can be seen here ..


LEWIS HINE 

1908 and Lewis Hine is against Child labour.  He travelled south to document child labour in the textile mills.  The owners would not welcome him.

The rural way of life could no longer support the families and they were forced to work in the textile mills and mines.

Some of the places he visited he couldnt get past the front door as he was unwelcome.  He did sometimes lie and say he was photographing the machinery and then get to the children that way.  Another time he waited and 35 boys came out aged 9 -15 all having worked there for years.  He had taken their picture.

Some of the workers were so small they had to climb on  the machines.  He photographed the whole staff of the cotton mill in clifton and it was the largest number of children he had ever seen.

He would try and make friends with the children recording things like their height and writing down their stories.  Many suffered horrible injuries losing limbs and fingers, but this was brushed under the carpet, these things happen .. the management took no notice.
The children suffered mental and physical degeneration from working in such poor conditions.
The children were unable to complain... Hine wanted to document all child labour.

Hine had a love for the children and wanted to improve their lives and conditions.

Jacob Riis 1849 - 1914

Below is a New York Times article about Riis which can be read here...


And a 10 minute film about him can be seen here..


Jacob Riis - How the Other Half Lives 

Riis went to New York, age 21, in 1870 with little money which soon ran out completely.
He ended up roughing it and became down and suicidal. He landed on his feet getting a job
as a police reporter.
He wanted to report what he saw in these slums, and wrote about them but sketches didn't show the truth.  He thought about photographs but the areas were too dark. However this coincided with the new magnesium flash.  Riis was one of the first to use this and he managed to get his photographs sneaking up on people surprising them with the flash and then moving away again.  He produced the images that he wanted horrifying the middle classes who were unaware of what was going on around them.

There was a million poor and undernourished.  There were many areas he photographed, one he photographed a dozen men apparently all wanted for murder.
The young sold newspapers by day and slept in alleys at night, they also worked 7 days a week in sweat shops and many were orphans.  The conditions were totally unacceptable where they were forced to live.

Tenement housing is where they are as many people in the smallest space as possible.  It is the lowest
overheads for the landlord, and there were no laws.
They were 6 or 7 floor high and some of the interior rooms had no light or air.  One in five children were killed within these houses.
Disease spread rapidly, they were ill fed and clothed.  There was no plumbing.
The biggest problem was TB .. 20,000 new cases each year, with 8,000 yearly deaths.

This book awakened the middle classes and spurred them into much needed action for change.
If people are left to live like this them they will steal etc..

Commissioner Rosevelt went to the office of Riis and left him a note to say .. I have read our book and have come to help ....

The tenement housing was taken down as a result of this book and these photographs.

Matthew Brady Video

Short documentary film on Brady can be found  here ...


This picture below is the wagon containing Bradys camera and mobile dark room, with glass negatives and all the required chemicals to develop the images..
Its hard to imagine how difficult it must have been and by the look of those wheels suspension was at a minimal.. they must have had a lot of failures and breakages.
They used the 'old wet plate' process and they took the darkroom to the battlefield.

I viewed and listened to the video about Matthew Brady and it was very interesting to see the images.
Matthew was the first to use the magic eye as apposed to wooden box cameras, he followed armies during the Civil war of America.  It recorded tragedy that neither the imagination or the work of a painter could reproduce.

Brady was a young farm boy who liked photography but also collected images of others, he had a great interest.
Matthew Brady photographed many of the presidents, he made their faces familiar.  Slavery threatened national unity and President Abraham Lincoln was in charge of a divided nation.  Lincoln called for
armies and weapons for this the bloodiest of wars.

Brady took his contraptions to the camps and took photos.  He was the first to ever take a picture of an army camp.  which was on a glass negative.

The war began to carry to inland waters and more effective gun boats were required, they needed more men to join the navy. The war also meant uprooting people causing many refugees.  Flesh wounds lead to gangrene and amputations as there was a lack of medical provisions.  483,000 lives were ended.
The war ended when Lees surrendered - then there was peace.
Two years later Lincoln was assassinated, shot dead.

Even though Brady took thousands of wonderful images he ended up penniless.



IMAGES 

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=mathew+brady+photos&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=en&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=kwzmVK6_K8vvaIG9gfgC&ved=0CBQQsAQ&tbm=isch

Exercise : This is Where I live ...

I have to go out and photograph my local environment in two different ways.

This isn't exactly where I live, but I thought the next town would have a bit more interest and I have photographed my village before and there was a strong possibility the images may turn out the same. Good also for me to go to somewhere and see things anew, even though I visit Ware on many occasions.

WARE - PART ONE 

PART ONE. ..

On my first visit to Ware I was armed with a compact camera ..fixed lens .. and started to walk around and take a general selection of pictures of things, buildings I came across and made a record of the area.

The first picture a derelict hotel awaiting demolition, these lonely buildings give off a sad appearance and doesn’t really represent the area, which is quite lively and vibrant so this isn’t a fair representation as a whole, but it is what I saw.

General roadworks is a fair representation of the area for some reason there is always something going on. 

The old  buildings some are very pretty and lots of cottagey styles, however as seen in pictures a few of the shops are empty and this is never a nice sight.  There is more development – which is great once finished but always a mess when in progress with scaffold covering, there is the town monument and general insignificant pictures of town.

Leading on to the river. One picture of the pub by the river and the next looking away from the river at some flats.

The museum also pictured but not making want to visit.

These pictures are obviously a true representation of Ware as this is what I have seen and taken .. but lets see what I get with the second visit.

WARE - PART TWO 

PART TWO ..

My second visit with my dslr and a different frame of mind, not just taking pictures of Ware but trying to make it appealing as if I were making a brochure or trying to show it at its best or more interesting.

I have some close up shots of some signage with the flowers in bloom.  The river in the background, the same pub is in this picture but this is much more appealing.

The war memorials and the church are important to the town and are shown well here.

Cottages and café shot to look appealing and desirable.

The museum photographed at a slightly different angle and shows a pretty building inviting you in.  A pretty green florist has the same appeal, overflowing onto the pavement. 

The river also looks beautiful and shown with people relaxing around it and tempting you to walk along the river and explore.

It shows with a little more care taken and thought into the final images,  you can give two very different views of the same place and I much prefer the second set of pictures both for myself and the people of Ware !