Martin Parr serves for an excellent response to most of these questions. Having been a serious photographer since 1975 he has nearly half a century of first hand experience of the photography world, a quality for which there is no substitute. He also attempts to keep his equipment, style and subject matter contemporary throughout the years; and it must be for this reason amongst others that he declares himself as a “post modern photographer” [Parr by Parr, Quentin Bajac & Martin Parr].
Throughout his photographic years Parr has been a slave to manual cameras. Although the battle between manual and digital camera-using photographers has waged for years it’s safe to say that to this day any photographer practising on film and labouring over their work for hours on end in the darkroom will be considered as more of an artist, and as a product for their work to be considered art.
It was only in the 1970s that documentary photography became widely accepted as a valid art form. Until this point photographers were shunned from exhibiting; photography was more of a job to serve a purpose rather than the thoughtful, often purposeless ‘art forms’ we see today. Documentary photography these days is exhibited all across the world in galleries, magazines, books etc.
Documentary photographers have a duty to their subjects to be truthful to reality, but as photographers tried to add their own interpretive and artful dimension to what they see around them; it was only a matter of time before discrepancies began to arise concerning the photographer’s fidelity towards his subject.
In the words of Jerry Thompson; “Whether their [the photographer’s] intent is descriptive or expressive – truth depends on the vision and mastery of the photographer.”
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