My Personal View On Creating Social Documentary Work

The sub-header on the front page of this website says “Street & Social Documentary Photography”.

In this article, I will explain what Social Documentary Photography in general is, share my personal view on this genre and explain how it defines the type of images I create.

Social Documentary Photography is a sub-genre of Documentary Photography, which usually refers to photography as a means to document historically important events (e.g. wars, political events). As a result, most people usually associate  Documentary Photography with professional photojournalists or documentary makers. This is what I would define as ‘hard’ documentary photography.

Documentary Photography can be distinguished from photojournalism in that it is not focused on on-time, breaking-news-events but focuses on documenting something over some time. Some documentary projects actually can take years to get finished.

When the images and documentaries created concern social or environmental themes, we then usually call that Social Documentary Photography.

This type of photography is often associated with photographers providing a critical review (sometimes: assessment) of these issues and how people act on them. In these cases the photographer also often advocates for the people impacted, trying to draw the public’s attention to the topic documented.

In my vision, however, Social Documentary Photography does not always have to be about ‘big’ issues: for me, it means documenting everyday life as I see it happening around me.

Although this genre of photography (usually) is created as ’straight photography’ about which I wrote previously on this blog, I realize that I can not be fully objective. By selecting my subjects, by making composition decisions, I already create a specific narrative that is guided by my observations and questions. That narrative can be emphasized by the accompanying text to the images.

It is important to keep in mind that this type of photography at its essence combines multiple images that are related to each other from a subject matter and/or storytelling perspective, and usually concerns long(er) term projects. This as opposed to street photography, which also is focused on recording everyday life, but in a single-image, candid, fashion.

Guided by my vision of what Social Documentary Photography is and my urge to show the viewer the not-so-obvious using the storytelling narrative, I aim to create images for my essays that tell a story, inviting the viewer to ponder questions about our society, environment, and how we as people live together.

More resources on documentary photography

Documentary photography is a wide-ranging form of fine art photography that can probably be defined in many different ways. The goal of the documentary photographer is to create an accurate representation of the subject. Here's another useful resource to read for tips on documentary photography.