Documentary Photography – Part 1

Documentary Photography is a genre of photography which is in connection to real life and illustrates the real situation. Documentary Photography overlaps with Photo essay and is sometimes considered as one. In this type of photography, the photographer chooses a topic which can be based on his/her interest and tells a story about it by series of photos as evidence. These series of photos tell the audience something or gives them special feeling and emotion or makes the audience to think or shows some aspects of a fact.

The topic for documentary photography is unlimited

and really depends on the photographer, varies from social to politics events. You just give your message through the pictures rather than words, or let’s say that you visualize a story and replace words by photos. So it counts as Visual Communication. Keep in mind that it’s not necessary to cover the whole event or story; it would better to focus on specific aspect of that event.

Time is another important factor in this genre.

Great documentaries cannot be achieved in a short period time. The more time you spend the better result you will get. So never rush and spend enough time. Depends on your story or event, it can even take you few months to complete your story.

Documentary photography is not a random photography or snapshots of people in the street or environment. It must be fit or structured in a format. This structure can be divided in to three main sections; introduction, body and conclusion. Your Essay has to have a beginning and an end related to your topic. So it’s obvious that the next step is doing some research about the topic and getting as much information as you can and update your information continuously. This information rises up your awareness and gives you a better vision and has sufficient influence on your work especially when you are going to shoot photographs about the topic which you are not familiar with. For example, if you are a tourist or foreigner and you are going to photograph about Loy Katorn festival in Bangkok, then you need to get information about the Thai culture and also research for the photos that had been taken by other photographers. It helps you to have a successful and unique photo essay.

A Documentary photographer is always prepared to pack the equipments and jump into the location to capture the moments.

I mean by “prepared” is that make sure that your batteries are charged and you have enough camera memory cards, checked the location’s address before and based on your location, have some water and medicine and dress casually and comfortable.

In next Blog Post, you will find more about the challenges that a photographer faces in shooting and the ways to overcome those challenges.

You can check some of my documentary photographs on my blog: http://nikignite.blog.com

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