Mini Brief - Documentary
What is documentary?
"Documentary photography is a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, and is often used in reportage" - Tate Glossary definition
Don McCullin
My favourite documentary photographer, or even photographer is Don McCullin.
Don McCullin is a British photographer who is responsible for some of the most famous and powerful images of the 20th Century. His career started in the 1950s and has continued all the way to today. He is most known for his coverage of wars and conflicts, but also his reporting of societal issues. Inequality and diversity are themes that have been present in McCullin’s work throughout his career.
McCullin has regularly been called a war photographer, a label that he himself disputes. McCullin has a lot of images that highlight and raise awareness for the British working class. His coverage of societal issues is often similar to his coverage of conflicts and wars, in the sense his work is often dark and brutal, but most importantly truthful. He sees societal issues in almost a militaristic sense, and to him highlighting social problems are just as important as reporting the big conflicts that he is most famed for. To quote him from his Exhibition at the Tate, “There are social wars that are worthwhile”.
Previous Documentary work - Ravensbourne Athletic Football Club
This project was probably my favourite project I have done for university, and I would argue the best work I have done for university. So I am looking forward to taking my experience from this documentary project for the one this term.
Test shoot at Spitalfields
I went to Spitalfields market with a group of university students to document the market there and practice taking images of a busy business or market. This will help because my previous documentary work was sport related so it's slightly different to this project.
Risk Assessment
The Shoot
In the end I ended up going to Fingals Bakery in Greenwich. They are an Independent business, which I thought would make it more atmospheric than a chain. It was quite a quiet day in the bakery, and the actual bakers had already gone home, however that did give me more space and time to get images.
Editing
So first, l used the star rating tool on Capture One to rate my images. I then divided them into groups using the colour coding tool, I divided them into groups depending on each images content and how they would fit together in a series.
I then made preset by altering the exposure, contrast and saturation. I added my shadows as well, and decreased highlights. Then added clarity and structure. I slightly changed the white balance too. I thought I could use this preset potentially for my environmental portrait, so they sort of fit and work together like in a magazine.
The Outcome
My final outcome was these four images, I thought they fitted together and told a story or at least followed a process. That process being, customer going to the bakery, selecting their bread, and then the sandwich from the bread.
Evaluation
This documentary brief didn't really inspire me like the last documentary project I did. It was quite different, but it was a good experience and some of the images I am quite pleased with.
I feel the editing went really well and the style I used fitted the images. I feel like it adds a bit more "oomph" to the images but it doesn't take away anything at all. Also didn't change or alter anything which I like because it's more truthful which is important when documenting something in my opinion.
