Documentary Photography

Alex Majoli. ITALY. Genoa. Anti-G8 Demonstration. 2001.Magnum Collection. ARTstor. 

I had a hard time choosing which photo from Majoli's series taken at the Anti-G8 protest in Italy in 2001. This image in particular stood out to me both compositionally and contextually. I will admit after seeing the series I went and did a bit of research on the Anti-G8 demonstration in Genoa, but even without the background information the image itself is very powerful. Given the number of protests in recent memory in our own country, this image of a protestor in Genoa could just as easily be a protestor in Ferguson or Baltimore or even Boston. 14 years after this image was taken we're still seeing images like this in our everyday newscasts.

As to being an example of documentary photography, I see documentary photography as capturing an unstaged image showing a part of an event of some sort (be it every day life or something you'd read about in a history book) with the purpose of showing things as they happened. This image captures a strong, candid moment which can be viewed both in the historical context of when it was taken and outside of it, letting the viewer both draw their own conclusions while still creating interest in the event itself.