Argumentative Essay On Documentary Photography

Documentary photography has been seen for decades as being the form of art that has no specific outcome, meaning that any documentary photograph can be open to interpretation. It has been the leading form of creating awareness through a history of events which would otherwise be unknown, including ‘The Vietnamese Girl’ by Nick Ut, and ‘The Kiss’ 1945 by Alfred Eisenstaedt. However, there has always been an issue with the idea of ‘the truth’ and how it can be captured through a photograph, when there has always been an uncertainty of whether an image is staged or real. The fact of staging and appropriation has been evident through several famous works including Richard Prince’s ‘Cowboy Series’ 1989 and Jeff Wall’s ‘A Sudden Gust of Wind’ from

There have been several occasions I have heard of people who despise some documentary photographs due to their shocking nature. It’s been one of the biggest debates surrounding photography, as to whether we should take photos of disasters and tragedies for the benefit of history and campaigning, or whether it is completely immoral to stand back and watch things happen. One image that relates to this is from 2012 called ‘New York Subway Death’ by a New York Times photographer, an image of a man attempting to climb out from being trapped on the subway tracks seconds before being killed by the train. To many, the photographer had a choice as to save the man or take the photo, in which he chose the photo, however after details arose it was found that he apparently used the flash of the photo to warn the train driver, and that they had to move to a different part of the platform to save themselves from being pushed too by the panhandler, therefore expressing the point that every situation has a background story behind it, so therefore justifying the