Documentary

Documentary

Documentary - usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life.

Henri Cartier Bresson

The photo above is described as the "decisive moment". The decisive moment is a concept made popular by the street photographer, photojournalist, and Magnum co-founder Henri Cartier-Bresson. The decisive moment refers to capturing an event that is ephemeral and spontaneous, where the image represents the essence of the event itself.

Image Bank

Contact Sheets

Contact sheet - shoot 2

Photographs that require editing

In most of my images I played around with the Brightness Contrast, exposure and curves. In some places I used to clone tool to remove any unwanted objects from the photo.

In the above photo, I used levels and curves to edit this photo as well as using brightness and contrast. 

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, 

demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

I feel that the artist research was helpful in this study as it helped me understand the theory on Documentary and 
made me look at a normal day to day setting in a new light, and made me look for objects that would make a good 
photo.

I feel that I have created good standard photographs using the techniques the Henry Cartier-Bresson

used however I also feel that I put my style of photography into it too. But, I do not think that all of my

photographs would look good in black and white.

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My idea for recording Documentary was to photograph my day to day life, surrounded by horses and 

the jobs that come with them. I feel as though I was inspired by Henry Cartier-Bresson's work.

With reference to my best selected images: I feel that these images link to the topic and to the artist that I studied. however, in future work, I would experiment with the use of black and white images in order to create slightly more interesting images.

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

To take my photos I used a Canon E10 1000D, with multiple lenses. I had to adapt my camera settings to each particular shoot and setting as being in winter the weather can change rapidly along with the light. 

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.  

I believe that I have produced a strong series of images inspired by my research of Documentary and the images of Henry Cartier-Bresson.  The final images produced were refined by developing the photo in photoshop using a range of techniques.