AS Photography; Weird and Wonderful: Documentary Photography

What is Documentary Photography?

Documentary photography is taking photographs of events to show history. This could be events like circuses or parties, or could even follow someone's life. For example, Angelo Merendino did a documentary of his wife's battle with cancer.

How does it work?

Documentary photography is simply taking photographs of an event to give a story of what happened there. This could include how it started, what happened there, what people's reactions were and so on.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Documentary Photography?

The advantages of documentary photography is it helps keep a memory of an event that someone can look back on. It's a way of capturing memories.
Another advantage is that it can be used for advertisement to help attract more people to go to it, or can even promote things to the public so people are aware of things. For example, there could be an advert in a magazine of someone's battle with anorexia to help persuade others not to do it.

The disadvantages of documentary photography are that it can be emotional if you are documenting personal events like abuse, anorexia, obesity or any other disorder. It can also be really upsetting to those who are being documented.
Another disadvantage is that people often don't like having their photos taken so there may be some conflict when you have taken a photo of them.

Examples of Documentary Photography

A photographer who I instantly loved was Angelo Merendino who is based in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a photographer who specialises in documentary photography and portraiture. The thing that stood out most with him is the fact he documented his wife's battle with breast cancer which takes a lot of guts to do. It must have been emotional and upsetting, yet he stuck to it and won awards for his pieces of work.

The first image I have shown below shows his wife looking happy and seductive representing her as a confident woman who knows what she wants; she's happy with life.
You then get the image where it looks like she's just been told the news she has cancer. She looks weak and like she doesn't care if she breaks down in public. She can't wait til she's hidden, she's in too much pain. It shows a massive contrast from the seductive, confident woman to this weak, painful woman.

All of his images show a story from her being confident right to her death. You feel every emotion like you are right there living through their life with them. It shows other people's views like where the people are staring at her in the street as if she's weird. You then see their emotions like when the wife is having communion and her face shows it's like it's her last supper. It's like she doesn't want to do it because God gave up on her.

http://angelomerendino.com/my-wifes-fight-with-breast-cancer/

The next photographer I looked at was Felicia Webb who specialises in documentary photography and is based all over the world. Just like Angelo, she documents about social issues like anorexia, obesity and so on. The images that stood out to me the most were the ones showing the story of people suffering with anorexia. It's something I have close to my heart so I really connected with the images.

The images shown below show how she is documenting how anorexia occurs. How it starts of with harsh words leading someone to self harm, then they start acting on it by losing weight, how it's obvious that they aren't okay but no one helps, and then when it's too late and they're on their death bed is when people start caring.

On her website all the images can quotes next to them to describe the emotions they felt. Her images are so touching and she gets images from all kinds of view points and positions so no image is the same.

http://feliciawebb.co.uk/small.html

Moodboard

Experimenting

To experiment with documentary photography, I went to a trampoline event to take photos of it.

The first image shows the students warming up before going on the trampoline. Your eye gets drawn to the teacher due to her being the brightest, and then to each individual student because they are all blurred.
The composition is like a rule of three effect because it starts in the left side and then leads to the students in a triangle form which is great to make them stand out as they are the main part.
The techniques I used were an aperture of F/22 and a shutter speed of 4 sec. I used a slow shutter speed to capture the movement of the children so the image had a sense of character. I tried to link it to weird and wonderful by making them seem ghost like so it was like someone was looking at a place and remembering this event. Using a tripod meant I could keep the event crisp and clear so it wasn't all blurred. I used F/22 because there was not much lighting coming through so I needed longer for the light to reach everything.

The colours were white, red and mixtures of blues. The white meant that the children stood out because they were in blue so it was bright compared to the white wall. However, the blue wall at the back was a higher contrast so it distracts the eye away from the children.
The textures were smooth from the walls and floor due to it being laminate and a sports hall.

To improve this image, I would want the background to be blurred or lighter so the children stood out more. There were quite a few distractions I would get rid of like the bright wall, the basketball hoops, the black shapes on the wall and the bags in the corner.

In this next image I am showing an on-lookers point of view of the children listening to their teacher. It shows the attention that pupils give to those of a higher authority. It shows discipline and obedience.

The straight line of the children means your eyes get drawn directly to them because they act like a barrier to the other parts of the image. The composition of the image is diagonal so it looks less staged and more natural.
The techniques I used were an aperture of F/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/10. This is because I needed all the light to get through quickly to capture the moment.

The colours were the same as before and so are the textures (due to it being similar photos).
To improve this image I would remove all the distractions like the hoops, black shapes and white board.

In this image I wanted to get it from the student's point of view so it was like looking through a student's eyes watching the teacher. To do this, I sat with the students so I was exactly how it would be if I was actually taking part.
Your eyes are drawn to the heads of the students who I was next to because they are in focus and nothing else is. This helps show the point of view of the student because it makes it look like you're right there next to them.
The composition of the image is in left hand side to show the lines of the children so it looks like I was part of them. It helps show the positions of their heads looking at the demonstration at the front.
The techniques I used were an aperture of F/5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/10 sec. This was so I had a narrow depth of field to create the effect of looking like one of the children.

The colours were the same as before and so are the textures (due to it being similar photos).

To improve my work I would remove all the distractions of the black shapes and white board.

The final image is the same as the other one but closer up to show the student demonstrating a move. I wanted to capture movement so I love how it's blurred because it's like it's part of the memory of the student; as if they're remembering the moves for when they try it.
However, I did use a faster shutter speed of 1/6 sec so I was able to quickly capture the girl in the air without too much blur.
I would improve this image by removing the distractions again.

Response

In order to respond to my photographers, I chose to document an emotional journey, just like Angelo did with cancer, and Felicia with anorexia. To make this work my own, I chose to document the pressure on smoking. I wanted to show the journey of how a boy chose to rebel and start smoking due to people persuading him to.

To start off my documentary I set the scene by taking a photograph of the boy so people can have a good look at him before I introduce other people/things into it. I wanted to make people see how innocent he looks even when trying hard to look 'bad'.
The composition of this image is in the middle with no rule of three or leading lines, so I would improve this by cropping the image so it follows the rule of three as I feel it would attract your attention better.

I used an aperture of F/5 and a shutter speed of 1/60 sec, and this is because the lighting was quite dark due to it not being natural light. This meant the f-stop had to be smaller so it allowed a lot of light through.
The colours in this image include nude, grey, orange, red, white and brown which all seem to create a harsh atmosphere.
The textures include the smoothness of the bike, the softness of the material of his jacket and the straw-like feel of the stick wall.
The mood I get from this image is rebellion. He has a mischievous face and his arms being folded remind me of a child who is refusing to do something.
To improve this image I would remove the distractions of the handlebar on the right side, the plug, and the radiator. I chose to do this through Photoshop using the 'Clone' tool.

This next photo was to show how the boy was persauded to start smoking. I did this by having an older boy giving him the cigarette. The look on the boy's face makes it seem like he's not too sure about doing it, but the firm pass from the older boy makes him uncontrollably take it.

Your eye leads towards the cigerette because the closeness of the older boy attracts you down to where his arm leads to the cigarette. No rule of three was used but I feel this image is still okay.
The techniques I used was an aperture of F/5 and a shutter speed of 1 sec. This is because it was really dark due to poor lighting, so I had to allow a lot of light to get through. However, this meant my picture looks slightly blurred because of movement so I should have changed the ISO so it was more sensitive.
The colours of this image include brown, nude, red and grey which still keeps the harsh atmosphere.
The textures include the roughness of the wood and the softness of their jacket; the contrast helps make the boys stand out.
The mood I get from this image is vulnerabilty because the little boy is so young that he doesn't know what he's getting himself in for; a life of desperation and reliabilty on cigarettes.
To improve this image I would remove the window and shadows because they are very distracting. I chose to attempt this by using the 'Clone' tool in Photoshop to go over any imperfections. I feel the image is much better now because there are less distractions, however you can see it's been Photoshopped if you look close.

This image is of the boy 'smoking'. Your eye leads towards his face due to it nearly being in the right side of the rule of three.
The techniques I used was an aperture of F/5.3 and a shutter speed of 1 sec. This is because it was dark so there was no proper lighting, resulting in me needing to allow a lot of light through. The only problem with this was that the image looks blurry because of slight movement during the 1 second. I should have changed the ISO so it was more sensitive as I would have been able to have a faster shutter speed.

The colours and textures of this image are the same as before.
The mood I get from this image is fright due to the facial expression of the boy. He looks scared, as if he's been caught smoking. It really helps show his innocence in this.
To improve this image I would ensure that in the future I change the ISO instead of relying on a slow shutter speed, and I would also remove the distractions of the window and shadow. You can see at the side that I made these improvements and I feel it looks much better because the whole focus is on the boy. I used the 'Crop' tool and 'Clone' tool to make these changes.

In this final image, I wanted to show a sensitive side to the older boy in order to represent how he didn't want to do this. This image shows him looking at the little boy with quite a sad expression, to make it seem like he was looking at a younger version of himself. This was to get people thinking that maybe the older boy had been pressured into smoking when he was young which is why he does it to this boy.

Your eye leads towards the little boy's face due to it being lit up. It follows the rule of three due to his face being in the bottom right side.
The techniques I used was an aperture of F/5 and a shutter speed of 1 sec. This is because the lighting was really bad so I had to allow a lot of light through.
The colours and textures are the same as before.
The mood I get from this image is remembrance, as it makes me feel like the older boy is maybe remembering his childhood when looking at the young boy.
To improve this image I would remove the relection and the gap in the background in order to prevent distractions. I did this on Photoshop by using the 'Clone' tool. It looks much better because there are less distractions although it does look fake if you look close.

AS Photography; Weird and Wonderful

Documentary Photography