Are there overlaps between photography as fine art and documentary photography?
To be blunt, is documentary photography art? Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange embodied this debate so wonderfully, both in their actual work and the correspondence between them. Art should exist for the sake of itself, as Adams believed; yet art should also exist for the betterment of humanity, as Lange so passionately supported. While both believed there was no compromise between these philosophies, I think that both artists were correct, and I’ve tried to merge the two beliefs in my work. Documentary photography walks a fine line between art and documentation. People need a voice and as a documentary photographer, I’m in a unique position to provide a platform for them to the outside world. This person trusts my abilities as a storyteller and my abilities as a photographer to do justice to their story. And in order for that person’s story to reach the outside world, the images have to be powerful, striking and sometimes beautiful, even in the despair and the pain that the image may con
