Intrusion vs Performance in American Documentary Photography

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Intrusion vs Performance in American Documentary
Photography
Marion POST WOLCOTT, One of tenant families on
their porch, Marcella Plantation,
Mississippi(1939).

• Didier AUBERT - Sorbonne Nouvelle University /
  ARIAS
• 2007 International Visual Sociology Association
  Conference / New York University

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Dorothea LANGE. Migrant agricultural worker s
family (1936)
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Margaret BOURKE WHITE, You Have Seen Their
Faces (1939)
As a rule, the consumer of photographic
instrusion can depend on all kinds of reasonable
pretexts to call it something else art,
journalism, anthropology We use these
functions to divert ourselves, necessarily, of
self-incrimination in looking at photographs.
Max Kozloff, Photography and Fascination, (1979).
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Carl MYDANS.
When I was photographing people ... I was
continually aware that I and my cameras were an
intrusion. And sometimes, when the possibility
developed into that decisive moment that would
record the essence of what I saw and felt, I
would tense up nervously and keep my mouth closed
for fear my outsiders voice and words might
break the spell.

• Nick Phillips with wife in front of house.
  Ashland, Missouri (1936).

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Gregory PAPPAS, The Magic City (1989)
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Axiographics would address the question of how
values, particularly an ethics of representation,
comes to be known and experienced in relation to
space.

• Bill NICHOLS, Representing Reality.

Getting information from people is always a
negotiation . Howard BECKER,  How We Deal
with the People with Study 
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Lewis HINE. Homestead (1909)

• eye contact/pose/frontality
• collaboration (agency)
• tact/decorum

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• Performance  all the activity of an individual
  which occurs during a period marked by his
  continuous presence before a particular set of
  observers and which has some influence on the
  observers - The documentary scene?
• The front region includes a  fixed
  sign-equipment  called setting - including
  furniture, décor, physical layout - Steps, doors,
  porches...
• Erving GOFFMAN, The Representation of the Self in
  Everyday Life (1959)

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Performance  may be seen as an effort to give
the appearance that ones activity in the
region embodies certain standards. 

• These standards fall into two categories.
• Politeness (requires language)
• Decorum  the way in which the performer
  comports himself while in visual or aural range
  of the audience but not necessarily engaged in
  talk with them. 

Oraien CATLEDGE. Cabbagetown (1985).
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Margaret MORTON.
Fragile Dwelling shows that pride of place and
the desire for a home that expresses one's
identity are universal sentiments, shared by rich
and poor alike. The exhibition highlights the
planning and care with which people shape even
the most temporary of structures into homes,
using found materials to create both functional
and decorative features. Carolyn M. GOLDSTEIN