Documentary usually means that something is occurring naturally and is being captured purely for recording purposes.Documentary photography is one of the most popular forms of photography and occurs all over the world environmental, social and chronicle events which have a certain relevance to history.During the first world war when documentary photography properly emerged it was used purely for ‘gathering a creative education about actuality, life itself’ says David Bate in ‘documentary and storytelling’ . the photographer wanted the images they took to be records of everyday life.

There are many different views of what documentary photography really is and is you look at it from a now modern perspective and the opinion of Tate they describe documentary as ‘a style of photography that provides a straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects and events, and is often used in reportage’. However there was a very different view of this before the middle of the twentieth century were documentary photography was vital for capturing key events.

Nowadays documentary photography follows the lines that it shows a story through a series of photographs in depth which can be seen as different to photojournalism which is more what is happening in reality ( similar to documentary photography when it was first set up). Documentary photography gives us a deeper understanding and sense of meaning to critical events, public connections, stories of political justices, and human rights issues which are all very relevant to the audience of the photographs.

Documentary photography is very important in today’s open society as they have the ability to highlight stories and are one of this generations best chances of making people understand that change does need to happen. I think that this is why i really like documentary photography because it has the power to maybe make a difference and change the society with live in today to a better more peaceful place, and this is the type of photography which i would like to achieve this year ( something with a bigger meaning.

I think that documentary photography does have different meanings to it but what interpret it as is a way of showing social, political and environmental issues which are going on around the world that our society needs to know about and a photographer which i have found really influential when researching is Marcus Bleasdale who documents natural disasters in the Congo. He photographs show true stories of real life tragedies and although his work is spreading awareness of some issues going on around the world ‘Open society foundations’  “believe that photographers can be more effective when connecting to those who are already working towards change in an ongoing way.”

French for ‘Living picture’ Tableaux photography is what it means. it is a style of artist presentation which tends to ‘describe a group of suitably costumed actors, carefully posed and often theatrically lit.’ – wikipedia. The idea of Tableau has been around since before photography when people from the middle and lower class liked to recreate scenes from paintings of famous parties. Photographic experimentation began to appear more regularly during the 1970’s were it became more known of performance art and photography among women. Cindy Sherman is an example of woman photographers immerging in tableaux photography. Brighthub state that “Cindy Sherman’s “Film Stills” series dating from the late 1970’s to early 1980’s are all narrative tableau constructions that create archetypal women from B movies – posed, staged and lit to convey meaning and message. Sherman starred in every image, making herself into art.”

 

Susan brights opinion on what Tableaux and narrative photography is shows that she thinks that you can create exciting staged images which still tell a story but have been created in a specific. she states ” narrative is crucial to photography, as is artificial and contemporary artists realise this and use these as strategies to tell stories”.  Similar to Documentary photography narrative/Tableaux images have a deeper meaning behind them and are often telling the story of a social situation or issue.

Therefore the difference between tableaux photography and documentary photography becomes clear as tableaux photography is staged, artificial photographs which act on the before of telling either fantasy or real life situations but are not actual in the real environment/ situation. Whereas documentary photography capture real life in the moment image which have been less staged or not staged at all however still tell a very relevant and real story/ message about current social situations.