The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 11: Jonathon Keats – What Is A Documentary Photograph?

Just what is a documentary photograph?

Like most of you listening to this podcast, I have my own definition of what it is. Maybe unlike you, though, I've never delved much deeper than my own ideas and preconceptions. I had a sense of what worked for me and that was enough.

That's a dangerous road, don't you agree?

It's dangerous because it brings with it the risk of having a blinkered vision. Blinkered vision is something we cannot afford as documentary photographers.

In this episode of the podcast, I have the privilege of speaking with Jonathon Keats. Jonathon is a deep thinker, an artist and and philosopher, a photographer too. He writes for Forbes and reached out to me via email after episode 10 of the podcast aired.

In his email, he highlighted a recent Forbes article in which he discusses the work of Bernice Abbott, in particular her photographs illustrating scientific concepts through photography. He wondered whether they were documentary.

A simple question.

But a complicated answer.

Pondering Jonathon's question made me realize that while I have my own definition of documentary photography, it wasn't perhaps deep or nuanced enough. It was time to explore the concept in a conversation. And who better to discuss this with than Jonathon himself?

To listen to this episode of the podcast, just click the play button at the top of this blog post.

In the podcast, Jonathon and I reference a number of photographs. A few of them are shown below.

This photography, while captivating, doesn't give you all the information © 2010 Roger Overall

This version of the photograph gives more context © 2010 Roger Overall

Daguerre's photograph of Boulevard du Temple, Paris, taken in the spring of 1838. It shows the first known photograph of a human being (bottom left, having his shoes polished)

Links and more info

In the podcast, we touch upon a number of big names in the history of photography, as well as upon Jonathon's writing. You can find out more at the links below. Also included is a link to Mark Cotton's About Me page. If you've listened to the podcast, you'll know why.

Jonathon Keats on Wikipedia
Jonathon's Forbes article about Joel Sternfeld and the pumpkin field photographJonathon's Forbes article on Berenice Abbott
Modernism Gallery, San Francisco
Berenice Abbott
Man Ray
Eugene Atget
Eadweard Muybridge
Joel Sternfeld
Mark Cotton (@mcfontaine)
The Documentary Photographer episode 10: Dave Walsh Interview

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 9: David Creedon -Research, Depth and Understanding

In this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, we are joined by David Creedon.

David has been dubbed "Cork's Vermeer" and his work is characterised by a similar use of available light to the Dutch Master painters. In the interview, he talks about photographing abandoned houses in Ireland and inside people's homes in Cuba.

One thing that struck me during our conversation was David's deep historical understanding of the stories he photographs. He doesn't always acquire this in-depth insight before he starts taking pictures. For instance, it wasn't until after returning from Cuba and learning more about US foreign policy that he felt comfortable showing the photographs that he took.

Maria and Raul © 2011 David Creedon

To listen to the episode, hit the play button at the top of this post.

Links and more info

David's Website
The Cuban Food Blog

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 8: Joeri van der Kloet –Documentary Weddings

In episode eight of The Documentary Photographer podcast we welcome Joeri van der Kloet, a Dutch wedding photojournalist.

Wedding photography is one of the hardest disciplines within professional photography. Documentary wedding photography is harder again. You have to take ingredients that aren't of your choosing (light, situations, people) and produce striking and beautiful storytelling photographs. That's very hard to do well.

During our conversation, Joeri discusses how he views weddings and photography. He explains how he works on the day itself to get the best photographs possible and tells us what he looks for in a documentary wedding picture. He also talks about switching from a Canon DSLR to a Leica digital rangefinder.

© Joeri van der Kloet/Luta.nl

To listen to the episode, hit the play button at the top of this post.

Links and more info

Joeri's Website
Steve Huff's Blog

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 7: Simon Norfolk –Finding a Higher Purpose

One of the best things about hosting a podcast is the access you can get to important photographers and their thinking. Sometimes you even get a chance to talk to someone whose philosophy of photography is so powerful it knocks you on to your rear end. It is an awakening - and not a gentle one. An encounter with Simon Norfolk falls into this category, I think.

Softly spoken, Simon is a man who thinks deeply about history, society and photography. For over a decade his work has had a central theme - man's preoccupation with war. This preoccupation manifests itself not just in bombed buildings in Afghanistan. It is evident in other aspects of society as well. Simon's work for the past decade and more is an investigation of our relationship with war. His ambition? To change the world.

In this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, he talks about his work, the underlying thinking behind it, how he gains access to sensitive and dangerous areas, his experiences and the need for photographers to infuse their work with a purpose above just producing a photograph.

Editor's note: We do touch up some disturbing situations Simon has witnessed or been in. They aren’t described graphically, but the f-word is used twice. I have chosen to leave those instances in, because the context in which each is uttered. Deleting them would undermine the passion, honesty and integrity with which Simon speaks.

Afghanistan Balloon Man © Simon Norfolk

Links and more info

Simon's Website

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 6: Darren Purcell – AWedding Photographer in Haiti

At 4.53pm Tuesday 12th January, 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti.

It left over 300,000 people dead. Another 300, 000 were injured. One million were made homeless.

In the aftermath, many photographers visited Haiti. Initially, most came to record the destruction and the misery. Once the country dropped off the headline news agenda, photographers turned their attentions to the efforts being made to rebuild the country. One of them was Darren Purcell - an Irish wedding photographer.

In this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, Darren tells how he was approached by a charity to visit Haiti and talks candidly about what it meant for him personally and for his wedding business. We discuss dealing with subjects who have gone through such a trauma as well as the logistics involved in photographing amidst the ruins of disaster.

Down but not out. Darren encountered great spirit among the people of Haiti despite what they'd been through © 2011 Darren Purcell

Links and more info

Darren's Website
Darren's Facebook Page

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 5: Penny Wolin –Descendants of Light

The guest for this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast is Penny Wolin, a US photographer who has had an illustrious career.

Penny is known for her many entertainment industry portraits and her work documenting the life of Jews in the US, including those in her birth state Wyoming. For the last six years, she has been interviewing and photographing US photographers of Jewish ancestry for her Descendants of Light project.

This is a complex project. Among other things, it investigates the relationship between the importance of Jewish photographers in the US in the 20th century and their common ancestral background. In her own words: "In no other visual art form except cinema has there been such a staggering number of influential figures of Jewish ancestry as in photography. For over 100 years, in reportage, portraiture, fashion and street photography, Jews have excelled in the medium. In 2006, I began multiple trips throughout the United States to photograph and interview photographers of Jewish ancestry, while questioning whether their identity as Jews did, or did not, matter to their photographic work."

The list of photographers she has documented reads like a Who's Who of the business: David  Burnett, Cornell Capa, Bruce Davidson, Larry Fink, Robert Frank, Gregory Heisler, Annie Leibovitz, Helen Levitt, Jay Maisel, Eva Rubinstein, Garry Winogrand... the list goes on.

In our conversation, we try to put our finger on the cultural aspects that may contribute to the success of Jewish photographers. We also talk about her work methods and what next for the project.

Links and more info

Penny’s WebsitePenny on Wikipedia

Penny produced a video to help raise funds to produce the Descendants of Light book. It contains great insight into the project:

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast – Episode 4: Doug Menuez – Advertising Documentary

In this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, I get to talk to one of my heroes: Doug Menuez.

Doug is a US photographer who has found the holy grail - being paid advertising rates to photograph documentary images his way. The perfect blend of art and commerce.

We talk about how he gets access to his subjects and how he engages with them to gain their consent to their likeness being used in advertising. We also discuss his archive of photographs from the early(-ish) days of Silicon Valley - starting when Steve Jobs was reeling from being punted out of Apple.

Doug's work is profoundly evocative and rich. I think the photographs from his tequila project are among the most beautiful I've seen. They are infused with life and insight. They give a sense of cultural context. They lift a veil. They reach out to the viewer.

Doug is the author of one of the most important articles that I have ever read. Every photographer should take half an hour to read and reflect on his piece On Chaos, Fear, Survival and Luck. It is a beacon for me whenever I lose the faith in myself and my ability.

Links

Doug's Website
Doug's Blog

Tequila

This slideshow comprising work from his Heaven, Earth, Tequila project will give you a good idea of Doug's style and storytelling genius.


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The Documentary Photographer Podcast - Episode 3: Carl Weese - DrivingAround And Driving In

In this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, I'm thrilled to be talking with Carl Weese, a US photographer who is documenting drive-in movie theatres throughout the US before they vanish.

Carl is an expert at the platinum printing process and also the use of large format cameras - scratch that - VERY large format cameras.

In the interview, you'll hear about his reasons for doing the project, as well as about the spectacularly successful investment drive that he undertook earlier this year to raise the funding he needed.

Links

Carl's Website
Carls' Blog
Kickstarter

In the podcast, Carl and I touch all to briefly on platinum printing. If you'd like to learn a bit more about this process, there is a great slideshow here by Carl: Step By Step Platinum Printing. He also wrote an overview article on The Online Photographer blog: The Making of a Platinum Print.

One of Carl's drive-in movie theatre photographs © Carl Weese

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The Documentary Photographer Podcast - Episode 2: Pat Flynn - TheOnline Income Experiment

For this episode of The Documentary Photographer podcast, I'm delighted to be interviewing Pat Flynn.

Pat isn't a photographer. I'll tell you that now. However, I do think what he is doing is could be of interest to photographers. Actually, I think it could be of real use to us.

Pat publishes the Smart Passive Income blog and podcast, and has built up a solid reputation as a rich source of useful information about how to earn an income online. This fits really well with my own ambitions to find ways that I can monetize my photography via the internet. So when I had opportunity to interview Pat, I couldn't believe my luck.

Links

In the podcast, Pat mentions a lot of links that will help you if you decide that you'd like to research the possibilities of earning online income:

Smart Passive Income
Think Traffic
Gary Vaynerchuk
Green Exam Academy
The Four Hour Work Week
Security Guard Training HQ
InfoBarrel
ViperChill
Social Triggers

Special favour. In the podcast, Pat asks you to swing by his Facebook page to say "Hi". Please do so. He's a good egg:

Pat on Facebook

Quick links

By the way, if you want a quick link to two of the books/authors mentioned in the podcast, here you go. Warning, if you buy from Amazon on the other side of the jump, I get a few pennies in commission. You don't pay anything extra, but I thought you should know that if you did buy, you'd be putting a little tin in my pocket.

The first is Gary Vayerchuk's Crush It!; the second is The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

The Documentary Photographer Podcast - Episode 1: Dragan Tomas -Travellers

Does the world really need another photography podcast?

I think it does. Specifically, it needs one dedicated to documentary photography.

Start with 'Why'

Simon Sinek wrote a fine book called Start with Why. It highlights the success of endeavours that are built on a foundation of purpose. The what, when, who and how are all guided by the why.

If you listen to the first episode of this podcast, you'll hear me give a few very brief whys (some of them purely selfish) for launching it. I'll expand a little here.

I don't think documentary photography gets half the use or recognition that it deserves. The storytelling potential of documentary images remains largely untapped by governments, organizations and business.

I think there are two main reasons for this. The first is that people associate documentary photography with photojournalism, which has connotations of negative and distressing images. After all, news outlets generally peddle more gloom than cheer.

The second is that people don't really know how to use documentary photography for mainstream promotional applications. In a world in which social media has become so important, you'd think that documentary photography would be riding high. It isn't, really. Instead of insightful images, we get mundane PR shots or cosmetic advertising photographs. Marketing departments seem to shun telling real stories and letting the end user look under the bonnet. On the occasions that they do, the stories are sanitized to the point of blandness.

Someone needs to speak up for documentary photography.

It's not easy

Documentary photography is hard.

You have to create engaging photographs from circumstances and people beyond your control.

Then there are a multitude of issues surrounding choosing suitable subjects, gaining access, earning their trust and telling a genuine story.

Finally, you have to find a constructive outlet for the work - preferably before you even go into a project, but oftentimes after the fact.

The podcast will cover all of these things. It will, I hope, help photographers with their own documentary work.

Format

The podcast will appear monthly to begin with. When I can commit sufficient resources to it, I'll put it on a fortnightly footing.

As for the content, you'll be happy to know that it won't only be me talking. In fact, I'm going to try to keep out of it as much as a host can do by interviewing other photographers about their documentary projects.

By the way, if there's a particular photographer you'd like me to try to get hold of, let me know. Equally, if there is a topic you'd like discussed, I'd love to hear from you.

Episode 1

For this, the launch episode, Cork-based photographer Dragan Tomas joins us to discuss his recent work with the traveling community in Cork City.


Press the player to hear the audio.

 Travellers © Dragan Tomas

Travellers © Dragan Tomas

***UPDATE*** If you have a Blackberry smartphone, you can subscribe to and download the podcast from the Blackberry Podcast site. I'm hoping to have the podcast available via iTunes soon as well. ***UPDATE***

***UPDATE 2*** The Documentary Photographer podcast is now also available via iTunes ***UPDATE 2***

***UPDATE 3*** The Zune catalogue has also accepted the podcast ***UPDATE 3***