Idea No. 80 Documentary

I was in some ways confused by Bird's synthesis of documentary. While he said that it is an unbiased chronicle of events he also seemed to suggest that it is frequently strongly influenced by biases of the artist. I think that it is impossible for it to be unbiased, especially in a strongly commercialized society. Bird describes how documentary art grew from the need to record scientific findings such as new plants   or insects. He says that later documentary turned to photography and film, which is the art form that we most commonly associate with documentary today. Documentary reveals underlying themes of interest beyond just what is seen,

I really enjoy photography and I would like to use it more in more work. I took a photojournalism class in my undergraduate work and I really liked it. I worked for the Red Cross for a while and in addition to being a designer I was a "disaster photographer." So I would go take documentary photos of destruction and people being helped by the Red Cross when a large apartment building burned down and when bad storms hit (obviously not unbiased).   It became interesting to me how drawn to tragedy people can be. However, I also have an acquaintance who has been working on a long term photo documentary project called "Chicago Stories" where he photographs everyday lives of Chicagoans. His photos of people going about their lives can be so intriguing and it ties into my idea from my list of "spying on people". Documentary is a much nicer way of saying it:) I have another idea that involves documentary. I think it would be neat to take a picture of something everyday for 365 days (I know this idea has been done, but it can still be new). I originally really wanted to do this with Lake Michigan (I used to live and work on the Lakefront). It looks so drastically different day to day, and even moment to moment, calm, crowded, relaxing, violent, icy. I don't mean to sound like a total snob, but I think it's hard to understand unless you see it everyday. However, I can't think of anything in Coumbia that speaks to me the same way that Lake Michiagn did. In short, capturing change over time is an interesting way to use documentary photography in my opinion.

In some ways all art is documenting, not unbiasedly, but it is a way of freezing time, thoughts, and events and presenting them to others.

Speaking of freezing...I love this surprisingly beautiful documentary photography of a warehouse fire a couple of weeks ago in Chicago.