Welcome to a new blog dedicated to documentary photography. I have been a photographer for over 25 years and for the majority of that time my main passion has been photographing people. Rather than pose and preen my subjects though, I would rather photograph people being who they are, and doing what they do. We live in a real world and I want to make real photographs… it’s that simple.
There are times when I think I should have been born twenty years earlier than what I was… back when television was black and white, a computer was something a only government could afford to buy and most people looked to magazines like Life and Picture Post to see what the world really looked like. Those were the golden days of documentary photography. In recent years, most of the picture magazines have given way to lifestyle and gossip magazines, and it is getting more and more difficult to make a living from pure documentary photography.
I still believe in the genre though… I think real documentary is as important now as it ever has been and I want to help keep the genre alive. Part of the process is in recognising and acknowledging the good documentary photographers of today’s world… but part of it is also in educating the general public in the potential and the power of good documentary photography.
We all know the quote, fact is stranger than fiction, and I think good documentary photography proves that time and time again.
I do not see the need to stage manage photographs when, if a photographer is good enough, they can capture a real moment that can offer so much more honesty and connection to an audience.
I hope you can join me in supporting documentary photography…lets keep it real.