Introduction of Pre-second world war and Post-second world war documentary photography and its social conditions.

This dissertation will be based on a study of documentary photography. Specifically, I will research how and why documentary photography changes after 1945. The paper will explore the general thesis that art changes with history and social conditions. I will examine specifically how the changing social conditions during and after the Second World War influences the theory and practice of documentary photography practice during this period in time.

The paper will begin with an analysis of Dorothea Lange’s work, made during the Great Depression in 1930s America. Here I shall be analyzing her photograph; Migrant Mother (1936). Robert Capa is another artist looked at, in particular, his image The Failing Soldier, (1936) which was, importantly, one of the first images to show a solider dying in a battle field.

I shall then be considering how the theory and practice of pre-war photographers, such as Lange and Capa, can be contrasted with the work of the post-war photographers, in particular, those associated with the School of Humanist Photography, which began in France immediately after the war. This movement had a significant influence on American photographers such as Robert Frank, who in his series The Americans (1958) is a prominent example of Humanist social documentary work. The paper will also research the New Documents exhibition, which exhibited work from photographers like Diane Arbus and was curated by John Szarkowski; who famously claimed that whereas the aim of the pre-war documentary tradition had been “to change life” the aim of the post-war documentarian’s was instead “to know it”. This claim from Szarkowski is what the essay will explore.

 Chapter 1. the Pre-second world war and Post-second world war documentary photography and its social conditions.

Chapter 1 will examine the theory and practice of documentary photography prior to the Second World War.

In this chapter I will ask; under what social conditions was pre-war documentary photography produced? And, what was the purpose of documentary photography during this period? I will explain how the pre-war photographers wanted to use documentary photography in order to effect change in social conditions. Dorothea Lange and Robert Capa will be the main focus of this chapter.

Lange’s image Migrant Mother was shot in 1936 while she was employed by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) which was formed to raise awareness of the Great Depression and to provide aid to the poor farmer families. The farmers during the time lived in poverty. As Lange states:

 “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and close from the same direction.” (MOMA).

The image embodies within a very tight frame the poverty-stricken conditions people lived in at that time and was a symbol of the Great Depression and helped spread awareness about the conditions of the Great Depression. It helped create small changes in social conditions like donations to the Farm Associations.

Robert Capa’s image The falling Soldier (1936) is a picture taken during the Spanish Civil War and depicts a Republican soldier at the moment he’s shot. This image helped earn Capa the title as the master of war photography at the time. The image helped change social attitudes towards war and depict its consequences on individuals rather than on large masses of people.

As Richard Whelan points out:

 “The horrific tendency of modern warfare is to depersonalize. Soldiers can use their weapons of mass destruction only because they have learned to conceptualize their victims not as individuals but as a category the enemy. Capa’s strategy was to repersonalize war to emphasize that those who suffer the effects of war are individuals with whom the viewer of the photographs cannot help but identify.” – Richard Whelan (Magnum).

 Chapter 2. about Pre-second world war and Post-second world war documentary photography and its social conditions.

The main focus of this chapter is to look into documentary photography made after the Second World War; in particular, the chapter will analyse the work of the School of Humanist Photography, which first emerges in France during the late-1940s. I will analyse this school of photography in terms of its philosophical system, i.e., Humanism, and how this philosophy was used to formulate and approach to social documentary practice based on perception of social change.

Robert Frank’s photographic book The Americans –first published in France in 1958 and the following year in America—is a comprehensive reflection on post-War American society. This body of work as a whole creates a complex portrait of the period that was viewed as sceptical of contemporary values, and attracted lots of criticism for evocating an America with lots of social problems. Frank saw America as an outsider and photographed at a time when America was going through all the post-war realities; social conditions like racism, isolation, consumption. It forever altered the way Americans looked at themselves and photographers looked at their subjects. At a later point The Americans became considered a seminal work in American photography and art history. Looking back at the work now the there is a clear growth in the social conditions now and back then in American society and this is why this work is very important as it reminds us of the past and is a proof of development from the past to the present.

 The chapter will also present works of photographers exhibited in the New Documents Exhibition at MoMA in 1967, which is a reflection on the New Documentary art movement. The photographer looked at is Diane Arbus, known for her hand-held black and white images of marginalized people such as midgets, circus freaks, giants, transgenders, as well as more normalized subjects of suburban families. Her work offers with an intense gaze a sense of “othering” in her subjects and she is often criticized for objectifying her subjects. Her work is documentary which reflects real life subjects in their natural environments. Arbus found interest and conjured beauty in unlikely subjects and made remarkable portraits of people that were not often deemed “fit” to be in front of the lens of a camera. She one said, “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” The work depicts how the art that is often thought to be reserved only for the aesthetically pleasing was used by Arbus to show the “real” or “true” world.

 Conclusion on Pre-second world war and Post-second world war documentary photography and its social conditions.

In my conclusion will compare what we have learned about the theory of pre-war documentary photography in Chapter 1 and its attempts to effect or influence change in social conditions, with the post second world-war documentary practice which is mainly concerned with everyday life and is not driven to bring a change in the social conditions but to simply record it. I shall argue here that Second World War and the social conditions brought about by the war significantly influenced the theory and practice of post-war photographers and explains why photographers gave up on the pre-war idea that they should try to change the world through their work.

 References of Pre-second world war and Post-second world war documentary photography and its social conditions.

 Bush, K and Sladen, M. (2006). In the face of history: European photographers in the 20th century. London: Black Dog.

Caruso, M. (2016). Italian Humanist Photography from Fascism to the Cold War. London: Bloomsbury.

James, S. (2012). ‘A Post-Fascist "Family of Man?" Cold War Humanism, Democracy and Photography in Germany’. Oxford Art Journal, Volume 35, Issue 3.

Poos, F. (2012). The bitter years: Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration photographs. Distributed Art Publishers.

Roberts, J. (1999). The art of interruption. Manchester: St. Martin's Press.

Roberts, J. (2014). Photography and Its Violations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Smith, D. (2005) ‘Funny Face Humanism in Post-War French Photography and Philosophy.’ French Cultural Studies. Volume 16, Issue 1.

Strange, M. (1989). Symbols of ideal life: social documentary photography in America 1890-1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Szarkowski, J. (2012). The photographer's eye. New York