Documentary Photography Essay

Words: 1527
Pages: 7

Documentary Photography

Documentary Photography is what started photography and is what will continue photography. Before photography was consider art people used it as mean of showing the wonders of the world and also document history for the posterity of the world. Even now years after photography was a form of art. People document everything weather its to show someone a trip they went on or a car ride to the grocery store. Now that every person has a camera in their pocket documentary photography to me seems that the most important form of photography that is out there. From social media to professional photographers the 21st century is always jumping on the chance to document every aspect of life. From the mundane on snapchat to the
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Two of these photographers did close to the same type of documentation but still had their personal twist that makes them unique to them. Ansel Adams is known for is very beautiful and unique landscape photographs. One of my personal favorite lesser known documentary photographers is called Nick Hedges. He did some documentary work in the east end of London in the 1960’s. One of his photographs made me think a lot about how people lived in this time. In this picture that was taken by Nick Hedges you can see a little girl surrounded by trash. This little girl is visibly dirty by the darkness on her face and you can see some light stains on her dress. In the background on this picture you can see the mess of newspapers and different bits and pieces of trash, mud and clothes. This photo was taken in 1969 more than 20 years after the war ended and the slums of the east end are still dirty and not being helped. This girl looks about 3 or 4, she is wearing a little cardigan and a dress. I find that living in those conditions absolutely awful. This picture is in front of a basement flat. I am not sure if this little girl lives in this flat exactly but she probably lives close by. People in these conditions didn’t have the best quality of life. A lot of the time they had some kind of infestation in their tenements. I think that is why the background is so dirty. I think that a lot of the mess is what happens to the streets when there is no clean up and there still places that have limited