ESSAY DRAFT

ESSAY:

How could we consider typology to be an extension of documentary photography.

‘Technology is above requiring an interpretation; it interprets itself. You merely need to select the right objects and place them precisely in the picture; then they tell the story of their own accord’

– Hilla Becher

Typologies is defined as organized systems of types; typologies can be described as an extension of documentary photography. Photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher explore this idea of typologies in their work, creating images that document industrial structures including water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories. Their work can be described as documentary photography with the use of typologies as an extension, as they documented the evolution of industrial buildings and presenting them in the form of grids. In this essay I intend to explore how typologies can be an extension to documentary photography. The quote above by Hilla Becher is a perfect portrayal how the Becher’s typologies is an extension of documentary photography, as documentary photography tells stories through the precise detailed photographs. Hilla Becher was a German photographer born in 1931, in which later she found her photography partner Bernd Becher which later became her husband. They began collaborating in 1959 after meeting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1957. The Becher’s photographed industrial buildings which could be argued as documenting the industrial revolution and the changes within the industrial world, which reinforces this idea that typologies can be an extention of documentary photography. Their work is rigorously objective in its aims, but in its exacting presentation stimulates consideration of the ways in which people organize and receive information about their own environments and the wider world.

My project focuses on the contrast of my duel nationality, Polish and Jersey family. I intend to take picture of my Polish family when I go away to vist them, in Susan Sontags book ‘On Photography’ she says that ‘camera goes with family life’ which reinforces this idea of family documentation through photography. Furthermore, in order to explore my Jersey lifestyle I intend to create a typology of the houses I’ve lived in, and then presenting them in a grid, drawing inspiration from the Bechers typology work.

The term ‘documentary’ was founded by an English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the early 19^t^hcentury. He referenced documentary to the visual culture, which led to some of the early 19^th century photographs to be regarded as documents. However now in the present day the term documentary is recognised as aiming to show, informally, everyday lives of ordinary people. When we think about the term ‘documentary’ the main objectives that structure our defintions would be style, tradition, genre, form, practice, and most importantly movement. The ‘birth’ of documentray photography was between 1920 and 1930, which motivated the movement of photojournalism due to the extensive use of photographs to tell stories and illustrating photo magazines such as Life Magazine in the USA and Picture Post in Britain. These magazines which were based on the extensive use of photographs to tell stories to the needs of a newly literate urban population. The first camera’s were made in France and England in the early 1840’s, as these countries were able to create these cameras due to having investors and buffs to opertae them, and these countries were financially stable therefore being able to afford it. Sontag states that ‘even when photographers are most concerned with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and conscience’ this therefore creates the debate on how true are photographs and whether they are reliable.

In my own work, during my trip away to Poland when taking documentary portraits of my family and the event, I will try to keep the photographs as true as possible, however when taking portraits there is some level of staging to ensure you get the right angle and lighting to create the best possible image. This therefore also contradicts the idea of documentary photography since the stereotype is that documentary photography is supposed to be truthful. In the image below, was one I took during my photoshoot, you can view an example of what would be descibed as a documentary photograph, however you can clearly see its been staged. In this image you can see my grans sister and her nephew in which the camera settings and later in the editing process by changing it to black and white, would descibe the image as documentary, but you can clearly see that both people are posing in the image.

A photographic typology is a study of “types”. That is, a photographic series that prioritizes “collecting” rather than stand-alone images. It’s a powerful method of photography that can be used to reshape the way we perceive the world around us. The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, invented New typologies, as they began working together in 1959 and went on and married in 1961, they are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure. Karl Blossfeldt, Albert Renger-Patzsc, and August Sander all influenced the Becher’s in their typology work. Karl Blossfeldt inspired them to create a photoshoot and laying out the images in the style of a triptik; Albert Renger-Patzsch gave them the idea that you can create a new style of photography with any pictures; and Albert Renger-Patzsch created a series of photography of taking pictures of plants. August Sander was part of the new objectivity movement which inspired a lot of photographers including Hilla and Bernd Becher to take their own movement and create their own style of photography.

In this typology grid, you are able to see nine images of industral buildings. The buildings are positioned in the middle of each individual image which creates a well structured grid, and organised visual of the images. By placing the images in a grid you are able to see the different structures of industrial buildings and can see the difference in construction. By using the form of the grid the Bernd’s were able to emphasise the repetition, which can suggests that the industrialisation was becoming repetitive. “we want to change nothing about the objects we photograph.. namely strip the individual object of context, in other words to position them such that they fit the frame” this quote by the Bernd’s show they photographed industrial buildings without context, just to view them as an overall form. The composition of the grid shows tall buildings in a secluded background. By having a secluded background it draws the focus on the buildings. By editing the images in black and white it creates an old documentary aesthetic. In my own study of buildings, I am intending to take pictures in all the houses ive lived in during my 17 years of life. The total houses ive lived in is 13, therefore I will go to each house/apartment ive resided in and put them in a typology grid taking inspiration from the Bechers. By doing this project for my personal study I am including the idea of typologies as an extension of documentray photography.