Photographing What's There

The "See Rock City" sign rusts quietly away on a

lonely little barn in western South Carolina.

(From my book Rock City Barns: A Passing Era)

Canon EOS A2 camera, 28-105mm f35-4.5 Canon lens, Kodak Ektachrome film

 

There are many different paths in photography, and many of them overlap. One of the major paths is documentary photography, which Wikipedia defines as " a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit." 

The Beginner's Guide to Documentary Photography says " In it’s most narrow definition, documentary photography is the practice of making a photograph which is an accurate representation of its subject. But the practice of shooting documentary photography is much richer than it’s definition would lead you to believe."

But as I said, the paths overlap. Almost every path in photography could be called documentary, because whether it's landscapes, weddings, portraits, corporate reports, fashion, product, or still life photography, it's about showing what something looks like.

I realized early in my career that for me, photography is an art of exploration. I consider myself a documentary photographer because the photography I most care about is photography that tells a story in pictures. In order to be engaged I must be working toward some sort of story, whether a photo essay or a photos-and-words story. The best years of my career were the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when I was developing and shooting A-V programs. Telling stories in photos and words. Doing books is also great, even better in some ways because they’re more permanent – assuming I can get them published!

I’m not an art photographer, except perhaps incidentally, or perhaps I should say accidentally. I’m always looking for visual puns, of course, but other than that I’m mostly not looking for stand-alone photographs, but photographs that advance a story. Many of my photographs are not strong on their own, but gain strength from their context as part of a story or sequence. The thing I do, though, is photograph the “thereness” of things. Many of the photographs in my books are like that, just “there.” Presented without art or artifice, and nothing special in the way of technique, just there and that’s just the way it looked.

Or, as the great Gary Winogrand said, "I photograph to see what things look like photographed."

Photograph and text copyright 2021, David B.Jenkins

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday each week.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

Tags: photography, Dave Jenkins, David B. Jenkins, documentary photography, Gary Winogrand, Rock City Barns, Canon EOS cameras, 28-105mm Canon EF lens, Kodak Ektachrome film, film photography