Talk:Documentary photography

How is documentary photography different from photojournalism?
It is not clear in my mind why this article should exist as a distinct page from photojournalism.Fishdecoy 00:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC) To me, from a GB perspective, documentary photography is about everyday life and work while photojournalism is about major events and news. Martin Parr, Bill Brandt are not in the list of documentary photographers for their news coverage. Davidoddsocksedge (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 16:29, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Merge
I suggest we merge this article (and the two others linked in the "Photographer" article) with Photographer. All four articles are stubs, combining them would solve the problem for all four articles.

Christophore 11:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I dont think this should be merged. They are two different topics.

Photography: street photography, documentary photography, photojournalist each is distinct, and there are other categories of photography as well. Super8Guy 00:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)Super8Guy

Documentary Photojournalism
Documentary Photojournalists (Reportage Photographers for the English) is different from straight Photojournalism. It is most commonly used in weddings using sequences of images rather than one image to tell a story and is definitely it's own category. Myraedison 03:42, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

needs more detail in the article, not a merge
Documentary photography is a huge category, it is a vast part of photography and just needs someone to properly write it.

There is a difference between documenting an event for journalistic reasons, and for reasons of meaning, rhetoric, artistic etc

Deformat 16:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. No merge.  I'm actually surprised this merge was proposed by a photographer, who apparently was only objecting to the fact that none of us have adequately written entries for the different branches of photography.  But obviously documentary photography has a separate and very important history from commercial or fashion photography - in fact those two are even closer together.  I would even hesitate to merge documentary photography with photojournalism.  I would however recommend we redirect from Documentary Photography to Documentary photography.  Bruxism 07:55, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

ya mum

Do not merge. They are not the same thing.

Partial Merge
I say we just do what happened to technology for japan

Leave Documentary photography alone and add a new topic in photography that says something quick about it like with the wiki for Japan they have a topic for technology that is shorter than the wiki for Japan's technology

Wiki of: Japan

Topic:   Science and technology of Japan

Contents: Main article: Science and technology in Japan Japan is a leading nation in the fields of scientific research, technology. ..

Idea from Chinoto —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.27.134 (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect Information
I personally consider myself a photojournalist and a documentary photographer and I disagree with every aspect of this article. What this article is describing, to me, is a photojournalist, by saying that documentary photography is usually of people, and is usually for print, is describing a photojournalist. At the core Photojournalism is photography to represent a newsworthy event, person, etc. while documentary photography is just documenting something, it's taking a photograph of something in it's natural state. I would personally rewrite most of this article but I don't want to totally blank and rewrite a page without seeing if others agree with my definition. SyBer WoLff 19:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree as far as the definition is concerned. Many documentary photographs were never intended for media publication. (Forensic photography is a subgenre of DP and is a good example.) GregorB (talk) 11:52, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The current article simultaneously alleges that documentary photography is usually about events, and usually about people. In my view, documentary photography does not have to have anything to do with people: it can include nature photography, architectural photography, and other sorts of images where the main purpose is recording the state of something in time. prat (talk) 23:32, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, documentary photography is not only about people. Documentary photographers make the images as a form of storytelling, seeking to elevate understanding about what the camera’s eye is recording. Documentary photographers gather and create images that can look soft, speak loud, and transform the split second into an everlasting glimpse at the truth. 188.154.229.193 (talk) 23:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

"Notable documentary photographers"
I'd thought that Puerto Rico ("Other") was part of the US. The name of the nation is conventionally spelled "Czechoslovakia". South African photographers -- but no Ernest Cole? No offence to Kosuke Okahara, but as the sole representative of Japan? (Just off the top of my head, how about Hiroshi Hamaya or Jun Miki?)

I thought for a moment of putting some effort toward fixing this list, but then realized that my own judgement is unlikely to be the same as or more authoritative than others' judgement, that any list so titled is likely to be subject to promotionalism..... Why not simply scrap the whole thing? -- Hoary (talk) 06:38, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It is not functioning as it stands. We don't have such lists at Social documentary photography, Portrait photography, Street photography (we have List of street photographers), Fashion photography and Conservation photography. -Lopifalko (talk) 06:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Let's wait a week and see if there are any persuasive arguments for retaining it. -- Hoary (talk) 07:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
 * A week has gone by.... Hoary (talk) 09:37, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * There's a similar situation over at Photogram. -Lopifalko (talk) 14:04, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I've commented there. Yes, there are of course similarities. But there are differences too. People may and do argue about the meaning (if any!) of "documentary photography", but it's commonly used in ways that would include thousands (indeed, perhaps the majority) of the photographers who have articles here. Photograms are a lot more simply defined, and photogrammists (if that's the right word) are very, very much fewer. (That said, it's not obvious to me that a referenced but otherwise bare list of photogrammists is better than Category:Photogrammists -- but of course items in the list could helpfully present additional info, e.g. "household objects; Budapest and elsewhere; 1916–c1938".) -- Hoary (talk) 22:43, 3 July 2019 (UTC)