Dan Sewell – research post – task 2

I plan to do a documentary style for my assignment.

Documentary photography dates back all the way to 1852, where photographer Philip Delamotte recorded the disassembly of Crystal Palace and 1861, where Matthew Brady recorded the civil war taking place in America.

Some current photographers that use this style of photography are Daniel Brady, Lewis Hine and Gordon Parks. Daniel Brady uses his photography skills that show off different land and places and how we perceive these elements to show how we as humans damage them. Lewis Hine was a photographer from around the early 20th century and used his skills to get across different social classes and the difference in conditions between different work places and families. Gordon Parks was a pioneer to south side ghettos in the 1940’s as he was able to use his abilities to get across the racism and how people of colour were unfairly treated.

Gordon Banks’ picture captioned “beautiful pictures of an ugly history”

Daniel Bradys’ photography captioned “Lowlands”

Lewis Hines’ photography captioned “Coil Winder”

The main goal of documentary photography is to capture real life scenarios that almost tell a story through the actions of the people or how the scene looks. The easiest way to do this is by trying to capture raw emotion, most likely in a busy setting without telling everybody so you know it’s a genuine reaction and not staged. What can be difficult is you need to snap the pictures at the exact correct moment, therefore you need to always be ready with your camera.