Week Nine

This week we looked at documentary photography by photographers such as, Jacob Riis and Walker Evans. I find Jacob Riis's work very interesting because it is so raw. I was shocked to see how casual and comfortable the people in his photographs appeared to be despite the fact that they were living in such horrible conditions and being photographed. I'm actually surprised at how natural many of the people are in the photographs we see. This is seen in Evans's work as well. As soon as someone with a camera gets near me I always feel a little awkward. I couldn't imagine how weird I would feel if there was someone I didn't know taking pictures of me in my home, a place of privacy. In Migrant Mother, even the children look like they're at ease and their mother isn't even paying attention to the camera. I wonder if any of these photographers ever get turned down when they ask to take someones picture. I would probably turn them down unless I had heard of them. I guess today you never know if you're going to end up on the Internet. That was just one aspect of documentary photography that I found to be really interesting.