Exercise: Documentary dilemmas
Read Brett Rogers’ introduction to the online gallery of Documentary Dilemmas at: http://collection.britishcouncil.org/whats_on/exhibition/11/14136 – Unfortunately the link doesn’t work.
Follow the ‘Glossary’ link and look at the work of the photographers highlighted above and others. (Open College of the Arts, 2014:75).
This takes you to a history of Documentary photography and work we have mostly covered already in the coursework, John Grierson and the term documentary, Mass observation, independent photographers such as Bill Brandt, The Farm Security Administration, American Social landscape photgraphers such as Garry Winogrand. One area that I have yet to research are those such as Tony Ray-Jones, labelled here as the ‘snapshot aesthetic’, who portrayed subjects in a casual and objective way that allowed the viewer to interpret the work freely. I will research his work. in particular his book A Day Off (1974), which was a particular inspiration for the generation of documentary photographers who developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
You might find it useful to read the Arts Council document Changing Britain as a brief contextual background to Documentary Dilemmas. Core resources: ChangingBritain.pdf.
This is a publicity/information document about the history of the British Arts Council. It mentions many of the photographers that I’ve already covered putting them in context; these include Bill Brandt, Daniel Meadows, Paul Graham. And Martin Parr.
Photography 2: Documentary 