Gen-X
Documentary
Photography
Dr.Deepak John Mathew
Photographers who have devised strategies, performances and staging especially for the
camera are mentioned in this article as they have challenged the traditional stereotype of
documentary photography. Some photographers go out for a daily shoot, looking for the moment
when a picture of great visual quality appears in the frame. They work with a pre-conceived idea
and frame in mind and capture an image which fits their prerequisite about documentary. This
does not address the aspects of documenting contemporary art performances, although some
outcomes can have the quality of the casual documentation of the artistic performance.
Though the work tells a story, it avoids the aspect of tableau photography in contemporary
art. Tableau photography is also called constituted or staged photography because the angles of
the camera and the elements depicted are worked out in advance and put together to articulate
a formulated idea for the creation of the image. Some of the photographs look into the idea of
photographic aesthetic. The image may lack drama or visual impact within the picture, but the
size and presentation do the needful. The impact of these kinds of images is lost when they’re
printed in small books or magazines.
Another interesting aspect to look at is photography projects that push the boundaries of
what would be considered as a ‘good’ subject for ‘art’ is a trend to ignore objects and spaces
that are normally dismissed as ordinary. But they are conceptually photographed and presented
as ‘art’. By this definition everything in the real world could be a potential subject, if viewed
subjectively. Another idea is to retain or create the machine-made look of photography when
intimate subjects are approached. If we concentrated on personalizing
