Unit 57 Photography and Photographic Research

Past examples of documentary photography and photographers 

Boris Mikhail



 Boris has been described as one the most important artists to have emerged from Soviet Russia .  He tends to document his own perspective of social distengertation with the break up of the Soviet Union.  In his  photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red shows the October Revolution, political party and the social system of Soviet society. He systematically took pictures of homeless people. It shows the situation of people who after the breakdown of the Soviet Union were not able to find their place in a secure social system. In a very direct way Mikhailov points out his critique against the "mask of beauty" of the emerging post-Soviet capitalistic way of life.
He tends to have a polar effect on each picture, there's a typical gloom style with his photos. 
Don McCullin  

McCullin took huge risks in order to take his photographs. He was threatened with a knife at a Muslim checkpoint in Beirut for having a Falangist press pass, blinded by CS gas during a riot in Derry, and wounded by fragments of mortar shell inCambodia. But he reports having been most frightened when arrested by Idi Amin’s thugs in Uganda and taken to a notorious prison where they were murdering hundreds of people every day with sledgehammers.. His photos tend to be black and white, they also tend to have a solum and serious effect. 

Paul Strand 

Paul Strand helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. His wide body of work, covers many genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.


Some of this early work, like the well-known "Wall Street," experimented with formal abstractions. Other of Strand's works reflect his interest in using the camera as a tool for social reform. He was one of the founders of the Photo League, an association of photographers who advocated using their art to promote social and political causes.


Paul's work it tends to be serious , a black and white effect, to make the point blunt and clear. His diverse body of work, spanning six decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

Present examples of documentary photography and photographers 

Tim Hetherington

Tim Hetherington was not fond of his celebrity assignments, as he always wanted to focus on what he believed to be more serious stories. (Pictured Right)

Shortly after graduation he received £5,000 from his grandmother's will, which allowed him to travel for two years in India, China and Tibet. That trip made him realize he wanted to make images, so he worked for three to four years, going to night school in photography before eventually going back to college.

He spent much of the next decade in West Africa, documenting political upheaval and its effects on daily life in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and other countries. Hetherington made several trips to Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008 with writer Sebastian Junger, on assignment for Vanity Fair. They were embeddedwith a single U.S. Army platoon. 

On the right we get to see a sillhoutelle war picture, focusing on two soldiers with the horizon behind them, the theme makes it look quite slick and cool with the shadows and seeing a glimpse into the life of a soilder. 

Edward Burtynsky 

Edward is known for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes. His parents had immigrated to Canada in 1951 from Ukraine .

With his father, Burtynsky learned how to make black-and-white photographic prints and together with his older sister established a small business taking portraits at the local Ukrainian centre. In the early '70s, Burtynsky found work in printing and he started night classes in photography.

Most of Burtynsky's exhibited photography was taken with a large format camera on a  large 4x5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution prints of various sizes  ranging from 18 x 22 inches to 60 x 80 inches. 

He often positions himself at high-vantage points over the landscape using elevated platforms, the natural topography, and more currently helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. 

Stephanie Sinclair

 Stephanie focuses on gender and human-rights issues such as child marriage and self-immolation. 

She first encountered child marriage(pictured right) in 2003 while working on a project about self-immolation in Afghanistan. “All the victims she met had been married very young, some only 9 years old, and to much older men.” From 2003–2005 Sinclair photographed young Afghan women who had burned themselves.

She tends to take photos which are straight to the point, they are all direct infront of the camera and there isn't much editing involved.