Documentary photography is when a photographer captures a movement that is happening at that time without any staging of interference from the photographer themselves. Documentary photography can be seen throughout history as it was initially invented to record, it was never created with the intent of becoming a creative format. However, this has changed throughout the years with photography actually become a creative subject often taught in schools and programs designed to manipulate photographs such as the well known program called Photoshop. Photography is no longer just about recording the world, it is also about manipulating it.

However early 20th century after the First World War documentary photography was thriving. The point to documentary photography wasn’t just to record an event, it was also to enlighten and teach in a creative way. Documentary photography was all about showing what everyday life was like for different people and showing that in motion, showing them smiling, frowning, angry, happy or sad. It was all about giving people the ability to notice things they weren’t used to seeing.  This sometimes shown in a certain order to convey a message. They may have put each photo in chronological order to show an event unravel or place to place them in a certain sequence to convey a meaning such as loneliness.

http://time.com/3449718/mystery-in-the-sky-a-legendary-photo-slowly-gives-up-its-secrets/

Just this photo in itself shows how important documentary photography is as its showing how the work men of the Rockefeller building would sit on the beams and have their lunch. This photo looks very artistic and staged or even edited however it’s not as the work men would do this almost every lunchtime and has been recorded and well documented. This is one of Rockefeller’s biggest part of their marketing campaign. Now they invite you to recreate this photo using a green screen when visiting the tower. This iconic photo has become something Rockefeller prides themselves off even through this would not be allowed now days, although this is probably why it was so interesting that these men had less care for their own lives than most people. This is all due to some one picking up their camera and taking a photo of these men otherwise we would not have known this happened. This is why documentary photography was important it was unstaged art.

The opposite to this was Tableaux. Tableaux is photography that is staged to look like a scene usually inspired by novels, film, art and any other visual and maybe non visual creative format. They would take scenes out of these forms of media and make whats essentially still life and photograph this. Tableaux was first seen in the at royal weddings where actors would imitate statues from paintings. They would not move until they did another scene. This was theatre with no dialogue, telling a story with just one still scene at a time. When it came to photography it wasn’t much different. The photographer would take photos of people that have been placed by the photographer themselves to convey a meaning and/or a story maybe relating to their own experiences or to mimic art.

The key characteristics of the contemporary photographic tableau according to Jean-François Chevrier are:

“They are designed and produced for the wall. summoning a confrontational experience on the part of the spectator that sharply contrasts with the habitual processes of appropriation and projection whereby photographic images are normally received and “consumed”

Jean-François Chevrier was the first to use the term tableau in relation to a form of art photography, which began in the 1970s and 1980s in an essay titled “The Adventures of the Picture Form in the History of Photography” in 1989.

‘Small Town America’ By Gregory Crewdson     https://francessmithphotoworks.wordpress.com/tag/tableaux-photography/

As you can see with the photo above it has clearly been staged with props, actors, costumes and a specific location to convey a certain message. Compare this to documentary photography the subject often have their photo taken in the environment they are already in it is more of a matter of recording and maybe this may naturally translate into a message. This photo has clearly been set up and framed and set up with the proper lighting to make an ideal image. Tableaux is all about making a false reality showing the view a distorted and manipulated version of the world. Where as documentary photography is all about showing the world in its rawness whether that’s hard to view or not.