Documentation

Documentation

"The documentary tradition as a continually developing "record" that is made in so many ways, with different voices and vision, intents and concerns, and with each contributor, finally, needing to meet a personal text" (Coles 218). Coles writes "The Tradition: Fact and Fiction" and describes the process of documenting, and what it is to be a documentarian. He clearly explains through many examples and across disciplines that there is no "fact or fiction" but it is intertwined, all in the eye of the maker. The documentarian shows human actuality; they each design their own work to their own standards based on personal opinion, values, interest and whom they want the art to appeal to. Coles uses famous, well-known photographers such as Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans, who show the political angle in their documentations and the method of cropping in the process of making the photo capture exactly what the photographer wants the audience to view. In this paper I will use outside sources that support and expand on Coles ideas with focus on human actuality, the interiority of a photograph, and the emotional impact of cropping.

According to Coles and an outside source I found, Lange is a documentarian who vividly portrays human actuality in her writing. Lange is depicted through Robert Coles as a caring individual, whose innermost thoughts, concerns and beliefs are transferred onto her photographs, especially in her photograph of the "Migrant Mother," which is from her most well-known photograph during the dustbowl era. Jack Hurley's book, Portrait of a Decade, describes more about Lange's motives and background, thus making me able to better understand Coles' ideas and the other parts of the essay regarding Lange:

When economic disaster struck the country... Dorothea Lang knew that somehow she had to be a part of the fight to win better conditions for the poor...Lange had very strong feelings about social injustice and her feelings came through clearly in her photographs. Because she did not come to Washington until the next spring, Lange did not take part in those early, highly important discussions and critiques. Her work was done separately in the early days and primarily on the West Coast. Even so, Lange's pictures spoke for her and had a tremendous influence on the formative period of historical section. (Hurley 52)

After reading Hurley's statement about Lange, I understand Lange's intention for taking pictures, and have a firmer grasp on the outlining historical period. Taylor hired Lange because of her honesty she showed in her style of photos and because she felt passionate about her work, which is parallel to what Coles states: a document is done with the bias of the documentarian. Another source that strongly supports and illuminates Coles thoughts about Lange and human actuality is Louis Gawthrop's article: "Her fears are our fears, her visions, our visions, her images, our images--of the homeless, the poor, the ever-growing, functionally illiterate underclass, the continuing fragmentation of the family, the evil of discrimination, and the steady erosion of the human capacity to love one's neighbor" (64). Lange feels very badly for the children, and wants to do whatever she can to portray the sadness and despair occurring during the dustbowl era. Lange snaps a photo at a specific angel, with optimal lighting, having the subjects pose to her command, to create a story that Lange imagines in her head when looking through the lenses. All of the latter are constructed with her own thoughts of what sadness, starvation, and desperation are. As I mentioned in the introduction, Coles says that human actuality is a clear product of the documentarian. Dorthea Lange and Walker Evans are both credited for their documentary work.

Coles thinks Evans' goal is to have the picture tell more, by using his selective method of cropping his photographs he shows the interiority of the photograph. Coles analyzes Evans' two pictures - image 9 and 10- and he notices the drastic impact that cropping has on an image. Interiority is the special quality in the photograph that the documentarian brings out through his perspective:

Evans is struggling for an interiority, that of his subject and that of is subject's future viewer/visitor: let us not only praise their man, lift him to the ranks of the famous, but consider what might be going on within him, and let us, through the motions of our moral imagination, enter his life, try to understand it, and return with that understanding to our own, which is thereby altered. (197)

Evans is also playing the role of creating an image to present to the public, as propaganda for the New Deal, but more sincerely I see his own thoughts, with the close up cropped picture in image 9. Coles sees Evans as ambitious, taking on so much detail and aspects he wants to appear in a single photograph. In Paul Moakley's Journal, "End fame: A room of one's own: Todd Eberle on Walker Evans," he amplifies Coles' claim regarding Evans' ability to crop to show interiority: "Evans was always able to eke something out that no one else can see. It's the rigor with which he sees that impresses me. In terms of an interior photograph, its one of the best ever made"(Moakley 128). Moakley comments on Evans' talent of cropping to bring out the innermost details about the photograph in a way that no one else could. I was able to better understand what Coles meant when he mentions that Evans really tries to capture the life of the image being shown, to learn about them, and to bring out a special connection to the viewer.

Lange's intent of cropping was to create an emotional impact on her audience, only showing a selective view of a photograph to trigger feelings of pity for the migrant worker, giving a completely different look to the photos: "Lange turns a photograph into a melancholy statement that embraces more than the population of a California