What’s documentary about photography?

“ What’s documentary about photography?:
From directed to digital photojournalism ”

by John Mraz

VIII

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-----. 1992. Interview, “Henri Cartier-Bresson.” In Paul Hill and Thomas Cooper, Dialogue With Photography. Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications.

-----. 1999. The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers. New York: Aperture.

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-----. 2000. “Redefining Documentary Photography.” Editorial, Zonezero, (April).

-----. 2001a. “Traditional Photography vs. Digital Photography.” Editorial, Zonezero, (March), http://www.zonezero.com/editorial/marzo01/march.html.

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Mraz, John. 2002. “Sebastião Salgado: Ways of Seeing Latin America.” Third Text 16, no. 1.

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Rosler, Martha. 1995. “Image Simulations, Computer Manipulations: Some Considerations.” In Photography after Photography: Memory and Representation in the Digital Age, edited by Hubertus v. Amelunxen, Stefan Iglhaut, and Florian Rötzer. Munich: G+B Arts.

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-----. 1961. “The Picture that Became a Campaign Issue.” Popular Photography 49 (September).

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-----. 1994. “Sebastião Salgado,” an interview by Ken Lassiter. Photographer’s Forum (September).

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Willumson, Glenn G. 1992. W. Eugene Smith and the Photographic Essay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldberg, Vicki. 1993. The Power of Photography. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group.

Morris, John G. 1998. GET THE PICTURE. A Personal History of Photojournalism. New York: Random House.

This is a much-reduced and substantially-reworked version of a text taken from the last chapter, “Thinking About Documentary,” of my book, Nacho López, Mexican Photographer, forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. It was originally designed as a slide presentation with 80 images, of which a selection has been made available here.

John Mraz is a Research Professor at the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (Mexico). He considers himself an "historiador gráfico," and has published widely in Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. on the uses of photography, cinema, and video in recounting the histories of Mexico and Cuba. Among his recent books are Nacho López y el fotoperiodismo mexicano en los años cincuenta (1999), La mirada inquieta: nuevo fotoperiodismo mexicano, 1976-1996 (1996, translation in English, 1998), and Uprooted: Braceros in the Hermanos Mayo Lens (1996).

He has been Guest Editor of monographic issues for several journals: Cinema and History in Latin America (Film Historia, University of Barcelona, 1999), Visual Culture in Latin America (Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina, Tel Aviv University, 1998) and Mexican Photography (History of Photography, Oxford University, 1996). He has directed award-winning documentary videotapes, curated several international exhibits of photography, and been a visiting professor at Oxford University, Duke University, Dartmouth College, Universidad de Barcelona, University of Connecticut, University of California at Santa Cruz, San Diego State University, and the Fototeca del INAH.