Historical and Contemporary Documentary Photography

Larry Clark's book, Tulsa, was published in '71 as a limited edition, after being sporadically being shot over the previous 8 years. Clark grew up in Tulsa, and began taking amphetamines with all of his friends at the age of 16. Although he moved to various places in his twenties, he returned to Tulsa and documented his friends and their lifestyles. What really stands out to me about this work, as opposed to other classic documentary photobooks made about America, such as Robert Frank's The Americans, is that Clark was living the experiences he as photographing; he was totally emotionally engaged in it, and as such it is a totally subjective and personal look at American society. Clark did not undertake the work with a social agenda, just the desire to make a body of work out of the documents he had made of his friends. The book was received well by critics, partly because of the fact that it highlighted that the drug culture was not only limited to the urban, poor neighborhoods of the cities, but was found in normal American suburbs.
The low lit, high contrast black and white images are intense in every way- both in their tightly cropped and spontaneous compositions, and the grainy, dark tones. This perfectly suits the the subject matter, which exposes an underground and often ignored subculture of young addicts who would do anything to get their next fix, such as prostitution and burglary. This portrayal of sex, drugs and violence in such a way was a real turning point in photography at the time.

A contemporary documentary photographer also working with youth as his subject matter is Simon Wheatley, who is currently exhibiting his 'Don't Call Me Urban (The Time of Grime) at the Side gallery in Newcastle. Wheatley spent time with gangs in areas of London where postcode wars begin as rap battles and often end in stabbings, shootings and deaths. He shot it all on digital, with the aim of creating images primarily for an exhibition, where the prints were stuck straight to the wall and weren't in frames. There was a lot of text to go with the images as well, as the stories behind the faces were just as an integral part of the project as the images.
Wheatley's images are the opposite of Clark's in many ways; perhaps because the audience he is aiming at has changed. No longer are we shocked by images of violence, sex and drug taking- these are almost commonplace in the world of photography now. Instead, he focuses on showing the gang members as individuals, more than the stereotype they have become known for in the media, but human beings with feelings and desires. By catching them in quiet moments, he is creating a new kind of document, which asks the audience to become more visually critical than ever; to look past the prejudices that society has instilled and to try and find similarities with them and not differences. Wheatley is shooting with a specific agenda; to instigate social change on some level, and make people more aware of the lives that are lead by others.

If these two photographers are anything to go by, it seems that documentary photography's role has changed, or progressed, over the years. Whereas previously it was used simply to show us the unseen, to fulfill personal explorations or to capture moments of real life, now photographers shoot with a clearer agenda. With the general population more visually intelligent than ever, the ability for photographs to go beyond the shock factor is possible.