Great article Paul, I'm fascinated by each author's approach to objectivity. All these are great examples of documentary photography in its purest form.
Once again, great work. This is the historical period of photography that I believe helped launch activist photography as we now know it, for better or worse. Its a time rich in subject matter for conversation. I appreciate this.
The one issue I can't wrap my head around, though, is the role of the subject in "subjective" photography. Take the image of the children at their Christmas meal. Let's remove the caption--that's an editorial insertion that none of the other photos have. And let's time-travel and make Evans the photographer. With these same elements in place -- the same soup and bread, the same ragged clothing, the same dilapidated shack, the same disheveled children -- how does Evans possible make this photo an "objective" one? The emotive aspects of that subject matter -- I believe -- would be impossible to overcome objectively.
Please tell where I'm wrong in this, but it seems to me that yes, of course, photographers chose to intrude or not intrude on a scene to influence hearts and minds. But in many cases, the scene itself defines the photographer's role. To remain "objective," Evans would have had to walk away from this shot.
Great article Paul, I'm fascinated by each author's approach to objectivity. All these are great examples of documentary photography in its purest form.
Once again, great work. This is the historical period of photography that I believe helped launch activist photography as we now know it, for better or worse. Its a time rich in subject matter for conversation. I appreciate this.
The one issue I can't wrap my head around, though, is the role of the subject in "subjective" photography. Take the image of the children at their Christmas meal. Let's remove the caption--that's an editorial insertion that none of the other photos have. And let's time-travel and make Evans the photographer. With these same elements in place -- the same soup and bread, the same ragged clothing, the same dilapidated shack, the same disheveled children -- how does Evans possible make this photo an "objective" one? The emotive aspects of that subject matter -- I believe -- would be impossible to overcome objectively.
Please tell where I'm wrong in this, but it seems to me that yes, of course, photographers chose to intrude or not intrude on a scene to influence hearts and minds. But in many cases, the scene itself defines the photographer's role. To remain "objective," Evans would have had to walk away from this shot.