Newhall Beaumont Documentary Approach to Photography Parnassus Vol. 10 No. 3 Mar. 1938 Pp.2-6

7/25/2019 Newhall Beaumont Documentary Approach to Photography Parnassus Vol. 10 No. 3 Mar. 1938 Pp.2-6

1/6

Documentary Approach to PhotographyAuthor(s): Beaumont NewhallSource: Parnassus, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Mar., 1938), pp. 2-6Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/771747

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2/6

H.

Le

Secq:

Porch

of Chartres

Cathed-

ral,

1852.

From an

original

paper negative

in

the collection

of

Victor

Barthelemy

Paris.

Courtesy

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

New

York.

TWO


3/6

DOCUMENTARY APPROACH

TO

PHOTOGRAPHY

by

BEAUMONT

NEWHALL

JOURNALISM

has discovered that the camera is

one

of its most

powerful

tools. A

picture

can often

tell

more than

thousands

of

words,

and

a

picture

made

by

photography implies

by

its

method

of

production

a

basis

of

fact.

All know

that such

an

implication

is

untrue,

but everyone accepts the photographas the pictorialevi-

dence of

an

eye-witness-the

cameraman.

There

is,

of

course,

nothing

new in the

appreciation

of the

photograph

as

a

document.

At

its

very

birth

in

1839

photography's

importance

in

providing,

with a

minimum of

effort,

accurate visual

records

was

advanced

as

one of its

chief values. On

this

one

point

all were

agreed,

while

the

place

of

the

photograph

as a work

of

art was

immediately

questioned.

But

even

those

who

have denied most

vehemently

that

photography

is

an art

do not hesitate to

study

the

history

of more

accepted

forms of

art

by

means of

photographic

documents. Henri

Delaborde,

in

a review of a

photographic

exhibition

in

1856 had no good to say for the photographsproduced

in the name of

Art,

but

he

was enthusiastic over

the

photographic

documents

of

Chartres cathedral

produced

by

Le

Secq.

I

mention this

particular

criticism,

because it is

a

qual-

itative

one. Delaborde

singled

out

the

work of

one

man.

We

agree

in

his

choice;

Le

Secq's

series

has

seldom

been

surpassed by

all

the hundreds

of

cameramen who

have

visited Chartres

since

1852.

Yet

they

were

not

unique.

They

were not

unique

in factual

content.

Their

technique-that

of

the

calotype-did

not

permit

a

high

resolution

of

detail;

what

is

told about

the

physical

struc-

ture of Chartres was not revealed for the first time, be-

cause

lithographed

documents,

by

the most

meticulous

draftsmen,

had

appeared previously.

Le

Secq's photo-

graphs

are

a

sympathetic

interpretation

of

Chartres.

They

are a direct

record,

not

only

of the

carved

stones,

but

of the

photographer's

motion

in

viewing

them.

And

they

represent

only

what

actually

stood in

front

of his

camera

on the

day

in 1852

when he

exposed

his

nega-

tives.

In

making

this

series

of

photographs,

Le

Secq

had in

mind

nothing

more than a record of

Chartres cathedral.

Yet in

producing

them

he

himself

created

works

of

art,

of a far

more

genuine

character

than

such an

elaborately

self-conscious

photograph

as

Rejlander's

Two Paths

of

Life,

reproduced

in

Parnassus in

October,

1934,

which

was

practically

contemporary.

Through

the

program

of

documenting medieval architecture and sculpture, Le

Secq

achieved

an

artistic

result.

This,

I

believe,

is

the

chief

esthetic

function

of

documentary

photography,

and

possibly

even

a

basis for

the

most

genuinely

crea-

tive

aspect

of

photography.

The

use

of

the

word

"documentary"

in

connection

with

photography

is

comparatively

new. Paul

Gruyer

in

his

Victor

Hugo

Photographe (Paris,

Mendel,

1905)

calls the

camera

record of

Hugo's

exile

in

Jersey

which

he

reproduces

"le

premier

document

photographique que

nous

possedons

sur

une

epoque"

In

the

N.

Y.

Sun for

February

8,

1926,

John

Grierson

spoke

of

Flaherty's

film

Moana

as

documentary.

It

has since

been

gener-

ally

accepted

among

movie

makers as

defining

a

particu-

lar

type

of

film

which

is

based

upon

natural

factual

ma-

terial

(as

opposed

to

artificialstudio

sets)

presented

in

an

imaginative

and

dramatic

form. The

greatest and

most

organized

activity

has

been in

Great

Britain,

under

the

leadership

of

John

Grierson

and Paul

Rotha. The

latter's

Documentary

Film,

published

by

Faber &

Faber

in

1936

is

a

brilliant

statement

of

the

history

and

aims

of

the

movement.

The

definition of

documentary

which

Rotha

offers

differs

markedly

from

the

dictionary

mean-

ing;

it

includes

qualitative

and

technical

implications-a

dramatic

presentation

of

fact.

It is thus

more

closely

al-

lied to

the

French

documentaire

as

developed

by

Zola.

Like the Frenchwriter'sdocument-novels,these filmsare

produced

for definite

sociological

purposes.

The

doctrine

is

conscious. There

exist,

of

course,

films

quite

inde-

pendent

of the

movement

which,

probably

unconscious-

ly,

follow

the

same

theories:

for

example many

news-

reels and

travelogues.

But

by

no

means

all,

for while

they

are

based

on

fact,

they

are

not

necessarily

presented

either

in a dramatic

fashion or

with

regard

to

the

socio-

logical

significance

of

their

material.

The

same is

true

of

still

photography.

I

have

dis-

cussed

the

meaning

of

documentary

as

used

in

film-mak-

THREE


4/6

DUST

STORM

(1936)

CIMAROON

COUNTY

OKLAHOMA

ARTHUR

ROTHSTEIN

Reproduced

through

the

courtesy

of

the

Farm

Secur-

ity

Administration.

ing,

because

in this

field

the

definition

has

been

made

articulate,

and

because

I

believe

that

the

present

popu-

larity

of the

word

to describe

a class

of

still

pictures

has

been

inspired by

the

example

of

the

cinema.

But

there

is a profound differencebetween still and motion-picture

photography.

The

former

is

primarily

a

spatial

art;

the

latter

a

temporal

one.

The

film

is

always

seen

as

a

unit;

the

sequence

of

images

is

prescribed,

and

remains

uni-

form

except

for wilful

cutting

by

exhibitors

for

moral

or

economic

reasons.

The

still

photograph,

however,

is

seldom

seen twice

in the

similar

manner.

It

may

be

re-

produced

together

with

any

other

photograph,

and

with

any

caption.

Therefore,

while

there

is

a

unity

of

spirit

between

still

and

cinematic

documentary,

their

ap-

proaches

to the

same

problem

must

be

through separate

channels.

It

is undeniable

that

the

documentary

method,

as

op-

posed to the abstractdesire to produce Fine Art, has re-

sulted

in

significant

photographic

art.

The work

of

photographers

who

have

attempted

to

interpret

subject-

matter

has

usually

been

superior

to

the work

of

pho-

tographers

who

have

deliberately

set

out

to rival

or

equal

the

painter.

There

are,

of

course,

brilliant

exceptions

to

this

observation.

But

let

us

examine

other cases

than

Le

Secq's.

In his

catalog

of

Civil

War

photographs,

Matthew

B.

Brady

states

that the

photographs

"represent

'grim-vis-

aged

war'

exactly

as

it

appeared,"

and makes

no

further

claim.

Yet these

pictures

of the wrack

and

ruin

of

human

bodies

and

nature

and

man's

creations,

these

pen-

etrating portraits

of the

men who

planned

and

foug

and died

for the Union

and

for

the

Confederacy

ha

more

esthetic content

than

the

compositions,

lighted

la

Rembrandt,

which are

signed

"Adam

Salom

sculpteur,"

or the

anecdotal

composite

prints

of H.

Robinson,

often

called the

father

of

pictorialism.

Filed

away

as records of

explorations

in the archiv

of the

U.

S.

Geological

Survey

are

photographs

of t

canyons

that

have

seldom

been

equalled.

To

find

t

finest

rendering

of

the

infinite

perspectives

of

the

gr

plains

of

the Middle

West,

one must

turn

to the stere

graphs

by

Alexander

Gardner

documenting

the co

struction

of

the

Union

Pacific

Railroad.

Hundreds

of thousands

of

photographs

of

Paris m

have

been taken

in

the

last hundred

years,

but to

perience

esthetically

the

face of that

great

city,

fairly

breathe

at

will its

atmosphere,

we consult

the

work

two

photographers

who would

be called

"documentar

today:

Charles

Marville,

who

recorded

for

the

state c

tain

condemned

quarters

before their destruction

at N

poleon

III's

command;

and

Eugene

Atget,

who at

t

turn

of the

century

trained

his

camera

on

every

conce

able

detail

of his beloved

city.

More

recently,

the

photographs

of

child

labor con

tions

in this

country,

taken

shortly

before

the war

Mr. Lewis

Hine

for

sociological

propaganda,

must

considered

portraits,

poignant

in their

stark

and

dir

seizure

of

the

emotions

of

both

photographer

and

su

jects.

Within

the

last decade

a

number of

younger photo

raphers, sensing the artistic strength of such photograp

ic documents

as

these,

have seen

in

this

materialistic

proach

the

basis for an

esthetic

of

photography.

Berenice

Abbott,

now

engaged

in

a

courageous

a

sweeping

documentation

of

New York

City,

we owe

o

knowledge

of

Atget

and

his

work;

she

acquired

alm

his

entire collection

of

negatives

after his death

in

19

Walker

Evans,

Ralph

Steiner,

Margaret

Bourke-Whi

in

the

East-Ansel

Adams,

Willard

Van

Dyke

in t

West-together

with

others

have

produced

simp

straightforward photographs

of

great

technical

exc

lence

interpreting

not

only

the world nearest to

the

but also

its

social

significance.

Up

to

a

few

years

a

this

work

has

lacked

organization;

although

widely

im

tated, no school was formed. With the formation

the

photographic

section

of the Farm

Security

Admin

tration

(then

known as the

Resettlement Administr

tion)

in

1935

an

important

center was

established.

R

E.

Stryker,

Chief of

the

Historical

Division

of t

F.S.A.,

conceived

the idea of

a

photographic

survey

agricultural

America;

Walker

Evans was

among

the

fi

photographers

commissioned

to

undertake this

wo

Largely

through

his

example

and

through

the

extraor

narily

fine miniature

camera shots of

Ben

Shahn,

a

rection

was

given

to

the

project;

a

technical

and

esthetic

standard

was

raised which the

other

photo

raphers

in

the

project

have

maintained.

Never

los

sight

of

the

primary

sociological

purpose

of

their

surv

FOUR


5/6

Arthur

Rothstein,

Russell

Lee,

John

Vachon,

Carl

My-

dans,

Dorothea

Lange

and Theodor

Jung

have

produced

photographs

which deserve

the

consideration

of all

who

appreciate

art

in its

richest

and

fullest

meaning.

Thanks

to

the

growth

of the

documentary

method,

the

future

of

photography

in

the

U. S. A.

seems

very promising.

It

is

important

to

bear

in

mind that

"documentary"

s

an

approach

rather than

an end. Slavish imitation

of

the

style

of other

workers is

meaningless.

Photography

has

suffered from

imitation almost more than the other

arts;

various

movements

have been so

blindly

followed that

the

force

of the

Driginalimpetus

has been lost.

"Pictorialism"

had a definite

esthetic

place

so

long

as it

was not

practised

as an

end;

the Photo-Secessionists at the turn of the

cen-

tury

were

genuinely

creative. Yet

compare

the

plates

of

Camera

Work

with

the

prize-winners

in

pictorial

salons

today

The

followers have

imitated the form and

the

technique,

but

they

have omitted the

spirit

of

the

original.

Just

within the

last

few

years

we

have

seen

the

growth

of the

"candid"

school

from the

truly

amazing

unposed

portraits

of Dr. Erich Salomon in the

late

twenties

to

the most

casual

snapshot

by anyone

whose

pocketbook

can

afford

a

miniature

camera

with an

F/2

lens.

Dr.

Salomon's

pictures

were

correctly

described

by

the

edi-

tor of a

London

illustrated

paper

as

"candid,"

but

the

majority of similar photographs deserve no such adjec-

tive.

And

so

it is

with

"documentary."

Because

the

majority

of

best

work

has

been

concerned with

the

homes

and lives

of

the

under-privileged, many pictures

of the

down-and-

out have

been made

as

"documentaries."

The

decay

of

man

and of his

buildings

is

picturesque;

the

texture

of

weathered

boards

and

broken

window-panes

has

always

been

particularly delightful

to

photograph.

Eighty

years

ago

a critic in the

Cosmopolitan

Art

Journal

wrote: "If

asked to

say

what

photography

has best

succeeded in

ren-

dering,

we should

point

to

everything

near

and

rough."

These

things,

taken for their

picturesqueness,

may

and

often do form

photographs

of

great

beauty.

But

unless

they

are

taken with a

seriously

socioligical

purpose,

they

are not

documentary.

The

documentary

photographer

is not

a

mere

techni-

cian.

Nor

is he an artist

for art's sake.

His

results

are

often

brilliant

technically

and

highly

artistic,

but

pri-

they

are

pictorial

reports.

First

and

foremost

he

is

visualizer. He

puts

into

pictures

what

he

knows

about,

what he

thinks

of,

the

subject

before his

camera.

going

on

an

assignment

he

carefully

studies

the

which he is

to

visualize.

He

reads

history

and

subjects.

He

examines

existing

pictorial

material

negative and positive value-to determine what

be

re-visualized

in terms

of

his

approach

to

the as-

and

what

has not been

visualized.

But

he will

not

photograph

dispassionately;

he

will

simply

illustrate

his

library

notes.

He will

put

into

most

effective

way

to

teach the

public

he is

addressing.

After

all,

is not

this the

root-meaning

of

the word "docu-

ment"

(docere,

"to

teach")?

For this

reason

his

pictures

will

have a

different,

and

more

vital,

quality

than

those

of a

mere

technician.

They

will even be

better than

those

of

a cameraman

working

under the

direction

of

a

sociolo-

gist,

because

he understands

his medium

thoroughly,

and

is able to

take

advantage

of its

potentialities

while

respect-

ing

its

limitations.

Furthermore

he is able

to react to

a

given

situation

with

amazing spontaneity.

Edward

Weston,

in his

admirable

little

booklet Pho-

tography

in

the

"Enjoy

Your

Museum"

series has

said:

"In the

application

of camera

principles,

thought

and ac-

tion

so

nearly

coincide

that the

conception

of

an

idea

and

its

execution can be

almost

simultaneous.

The

previsioned

image,

as seen

through

the

camera,

is

perpetuated

at the

moment of

clearest

understanding,

of

most

intense emo-

tional

response."

This is

precisely

the

method of

work-

ing

which

has

produced

the

most

penetrating

photo-docu-

ments. We

see this

theory

in

practice

in

Margaret

Bourke-White's

Tou Have

Seen

Their Faces in

the

tech-

nical

section

of

which

she

describes the

way

she made

these

excellent

pictures:

"Flash

bulbs

provide

the

best

means I

know,

under

poor light

conditions,

of

letting

your

subject

talk

away

until

just

that

expression

which

you

wish to

capture crosses his face. Sometimes I would set

up

the

camera

in a

corner of

the

room,

sit

some

distance

away

from

it

with

a

remote

control

in

my

hand,

and

watch

our

people

while Mr.

Caldwell

talked

with

them.

It

might

be an

hour

before their

faces or

gestures

gave

us

what

we

were

trying

to

express,

but

the

instant it oc-

curred

the

scene

was

imprisoned

on

a

sheet

of

film

before

they

knew what

had

happened."

Technically,

the

documentary

photographer

is

a

purist,

but he

does

not

limit himself to

any

one

procedure.

Cameras

of

all

sizes

and

types

have

been

used

to

make

photo-documents.

Ideally

the

most

suitable camera

for

the

particular

job

is

chosen,

be

it a

miniature

with

film

hardly bigger than a postage stamp, or a bulky view

camera

taking eight

by

ten

inch

cut

film. If

there

is

any

camera which

may

be

called

universal

for

normal

docu-

mentary

work,

it

would

be

a

hand-camera for

cut

film

HOUSEWORK

ON

ARTIFICIAL

FLOWERS,

NEW

YORK

8

P.M.

(1911)

BY LEWIS

W. HINE.

COURTESY

OF

THE

PHOTOGRAPHER

camera studies

something

of

the

emotion

which

he

toward the

problem,

for he

realizes

that

this

is the


6/6

three-and-a-quarter

by

four-and-a-quarter

nches,

fitted

with a

coupled

range-finder

for

quick,

accurate focus-

sing,

and

with

a

synchronized

speed

flash

and

shutter

control,

making exposures

possible

under

any

light

con-

ditions. Needless to

say

retouching

of

any

kind

is

strictly

prohibited.

Since the value

of

a

photo-document

lies in

the

directness of

its

technique,

any

intervention

of

hand-work

is

bound

to

L.

injurious.

For

the

same

reason

the

negatives

are

printed directly

onto

a

smooth

surface

paper to allow

full detail to be

rendered.

But the

documentary

approach

does not

stop

with

the

print.

In

discussing

the use

of

the

word

documentary

to

describe

a

certain

class of

moving

pictures,

we

noted

the

importance

which

presentation

played

in the

theory.

Presentation is also a vital

part

of

documentary

still

photography.

The

photograph

is

not valid

as

a

docu-

ment

until

it

is

placed

in

relationship

to the

beholder's

experience.

It

is

paradoxical

that,

although

a

photo-

graph

may

be

better

than

a

thousand

words,

the

addition

of one or two words

makes it even more concrete and

forceful. Thus when

Le

Secq

signed

his

negative

"Chartres 1852" he

immediately gave

the

photograph

an

increased value as a document.

Such a

simple

case

has

no

bearing

on

esthetic

quality.

But more

extended

captions

enable

the

beholder

to orientate

himself,

thus

leaving

the

photographer

free to

interpret

the

subject

more

imaginatively.

A better

way

to

give

this

orienta-

tion

is

by

a series

of

photographs,

which when

properly

presented

approach

the cinema.

This is

the

richest

manner

of

giving photographs

significance,

for each

pic-

ture

reinforces the other. It

is,

I

believe,

the

logical

method

of

presentation.

It

is

more-it is the

logical

ap-

proach

to the

medium. One of the

striking

character-

istics

of

photography

is its

ease,

compared

with

every

RUINS

OF

RICHMOND,

VIRGINIA

(1865)

SIX

other

way

of

making

pictures.

Almost

universally

pho-

tographers

take

many

exposures

of a

given

scene,

if

only

to

make assurance

doubly

sure.

The series

is

usually

produced

with

no idea of

the method

of its

ultimate

presentation.

The

prints

for

publication

are

chosen

by

a

second

person,

are

captioned by

a

third,

are laid out

by

a

fourth.

If,

as

this

article

has

attempted

to

show,

creative

pho,

tography

can be

produced by

following

a

program

of

factual reporting, then the more clearly this programis

conceived,

the

greater

the

results. A

shooting

script

is

as

important

for

this

type

of

still

photography

as

for

movie-making,

and should

be

planned by

the editor

and

by

the

photographer working together.

This does not

mean

that

every

shot need

be

envisaged

on

paper,

but

it

does

mean

that the

photographer

should be considered

the

creator,

not

simply

of

individual

pictures,

but of

a re-

lated series.

Trimming, quality

of

reproduction,

its

relation to

text and

other

reproductions

n

size

and

spac-

ing-these

are all

as

important

as

the

photographer's

work

on

the field

and

in the

darkroom.

The

complete

documentary

approach

includes

these

functions.

And

I

believe

that

through

this

approach

there

can

be

achieved

publications

which,

in

every

sense of the

word,

exploit

the

special

medium

of

photography,

and

which

will

be

significant

contributions to

book-making.

In

the

German

illustrated

newspapers

between

the

War

and

the

Nazi

revolution,

in the

Parisian

Vu

while

edited

by

Lucien

Vogel,

in

Photo-History,

to

a certain

degree

in

Life

and its

imitators,

occasionally

in the

tabloids,

the

possibilities

are

being

shown.

The

text-books

of

the

future will

be

largely pictorial;

already

children's

books

are

assuming

that

character.

Back

of

them

all

is the

documentary

approach

to

photography.

Courtesy

Signal

Corps,

U. S.

Army

MATlTHEW

B. BRADY

Documents

Newhall Beaumont Documentary Approach to Photography Parnassus Vol. 10 No. 3 Mar. 1938 Pp.2-6