Documentary Photography

New Braunfels Documentary Photography: Our Legacy

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 In today’s fast moving society, where information flow to the public is often about what story is bigger, faster and easier to relate to, sometimes it pays to slow down.  When I take portraits, and a session is finished, I like to stop and take photos of the small details of family interaction when the subjects don’t feel like they are “on stage,” or posing.  Real moments are my very favorite.  Portraits are wonderful and I love them, but a documentary photograph tugs at the heart.

Photojournalism is the art or practice of communicating news by photographs.  We are inundated by images of natural disasters, war, celebrities and so much more.  Image files are processed quickly and are posted almost instantaneously posted on social media, in print or broadcast around the world more quickly every day.  According to Kirsten Lewis, “Documentary photography is really and an art, it is a type of photojournalism where the photographer is aiming to create a series of pictures that will a complete story.”  This is Documentary Family Photojournalism.

Last year I took a class online through Click Photo School, The Documentary Approach, and started following one of the other students, Francesca Russell, who is a photographer and filmmaker in New York City.  Last month Francesca started a project that asks the question, “What is your legacy?”  In the first week the prompts encourage the participant to look back on their birth story, and how their parents met.  In doing that, and talking with my mom about my story, I found a new perspective to approach family photography.  My goal has always been to produce unique, and personal images for my clients.  The photographs are more than the digital negative.  They are memories for a lifetime.

 

My mother, Miriam Gentry, with me in 1958.

This photo of me taken soon after I was born is very special to me.  It highlights the beginning of the relationship between mother and daughter and the connection between us even in those early months is obvious as you can see in the picture.  It is very precious to me as a daughter, a mother and a grandmother.  It is one of the many that tell the story of my life, and the journey through that life with my mother.  It is important to look back, as well as looking forward.

Families with new babies, people on vacation, seniors in high school, and engaged couples all deserve to have their story told in photos.   Please contact me to hear all about my documentary photography sessions.

 

Documentary Photography | Texas Hill Country

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There is a powerful history of documentary photography in the United States. Recently I watched a documentary about the work of Roy Stryker and the Farm Security Administration. The film called Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers was written and directed by Jeanine Isabel Butler and "addresses an impressive range of issues--focused through representation and responsibility--is germane for us today." 

In 1975 Roy Stryker said, "the picture began to be the things of my life, the photograph was the way to reach the people, somehow, someway I wanted life in pictures." In 1935, Franklin Roosevelt put documentary photography to work. Long before the television, the internet, and the 24 hour news cycle, he believed that imagery could reach more citizens and their government action. He charged the Resettlement Administration with providing that imagery, to reveal America to Americans.

Migrant Mother of Nipoma, California, 1936 | Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange's iconic photograph captures the desolation and poverty of the Great Depression. Yet Florence Owens Thompson's children leaning into her, and the classic curve of the baby's face, combined with the delicate position of her hand draws the viewer today. Eighty years after this photograph was taken young Americans have a sense of what families endured in those trying times.

Fleeing a Dust Storm, 1936 | Arthur Rothstein

This important photograph was a last minute decision by Arthur Rothstein. He had spent the day with farmer Arthur Coble and his two sons in Cimarron County, Oklahoma during a dust storm. There was some direction in this picture story.  Rothstein asked the younger boy to lean back with his arms over his eyes and the older boy and his father to lean forward in order to show the country, and the lawmakers in Washington the troubles of families in the Dust Bowl.

Floyd Burroughs 1936 | Walker Evans

This photograph was taken when Evans was on leave from the FSA, and working on his book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men with James Agee. He documented the plight of poor tenant farmers in Hale County, Alabama. The farmer's eyes convey the pain and desolation.. Sitting with a dark black background behind him the viewer feels the sense of uncertainty of the times.

Make a Wish 4000th Wish | Valero Energy Campus San Antonio, Texas, 2015

Make a Wish Valero Energy Campus | March 2015

Visual storytelling is as important in America today as it was in the Great Depression.  Photographs are plentiful and they are everywhere. Anyone with a smart phone can document a tragedy, an emotional moment, or a gift of compassion. We all have the ability to educate and inform through pictures and texts and the information is transmitted instantaneously.

 Cowboy Santa New Braunfels, Texas | December 2016

Making relief bags for the homeless, New Braunfels, Texas | December 2016

This is a visual world and the opportunity to do great things with photographs is still as valuable today  in America as it was during the time of the Farm Security Administration. I'm committed to documenting events that are important to families and community organizations. Just as the Great Depression can be revisited today through the FSA photographs, I am certain the documentary photographs of 2016 will inspire photographers 100 years from now. Take the time to learn about me. Call and arrange to have your next event documented by Faces-Places-Photography. We are committed to telling your story!