Victorian Photograpy

Taking Snapshots of History

Figure 1 . Breaker Boys at a Pennsylvania coal mine . Photograph by Lewis Hine , as shown in Freedman 1994 ,

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Figure 2 . Addie Card , 12 years . Spinner in North Pormal [i .e , Pownal] Cotton Mill . Vt . Photograph by Lewis Hine , as shown in Freedman 1994 br

.4 .Taking Snapshots of History

A Look into Documentary Photography

It is an innate , universal desire of every human being to be remembered and to leave behind sort of monuments to themselves . The average person likes being remembered and to reminisce

and it is also a universal fact that the average person likes to have his /her picture taken . People around the world , across cultures , know just what a Kodak moment is Families , companies , individuals - everybody knows what a still camera does and what it 's supposed to do : take a picture . People take pictures or snapshots to take home souvenirs of almost every place , event , and occasion they 've been in , forever preserving and capturing those moments for posterity 's sake . When one takes a snapshot , that certain frozen image is immortalized forever captured in that scene /frame . Hence the phrase , pictures are forever

Merriam-Webster defines a snapshot as a casual photograph made typically by an amateur with a small handheld camera an impression or view of something brief or transitory Aside from being a souvenir , a snapshot can also be a person 's evidence of sorts , of what he or she has seen or witnessed at that time , whether it is of a personal or historical relevance . This exhibits another facet of photography - as a visual documentary of events that encompass a much larger sphere of influence other than one 's own backyard or neighborhood

Taking this purpose of photography then , is it possible to see a photograph as an actual , valid document ? According to Merriam-Webster , a document is defined as something (as a photograph or a recording ) that serves as evidence or proof ' This leads us to conclude that when a photograph is taken in a moment of capturing an image as evidence or proof of something relevant enough to be documented , then this falls under the genre (if it is one ) of documentary photography . The historical anthology Documentary Photography (1972 ) defined documentary photography as a depiction of the real world by a photographer whose intent is to communicate something of importance - to make a comment - that will be understood by the viewer ' Documentary photography goes beyond plain aesthetics and has a purpose in mind : to make the viewer understand a message of importance that the photographer wished to convey at the moment of taking the photograph itself

One of the most famous documentary photographers in history is Lewis Hine . Hine left his teaching job to go work for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC ) as an investigative photographer . Being so impassioned by the child labor and abuse that he saw , Hine went to factories and cotton mills around the country to take photographs of children being...