Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.
John Beasly Greene's photo of the Abu Simbel temples, 1854
Bandit's Roost (1914) by Jacob Riis
Power house mechanic working on steam pump (1920) by Lewis Hine
Migrant Mother (1936) by Dorothea Lange, during the Great Depression
Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography by having a rigid ethical framework which demands an honest and impartial approach that tells a story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists contribute to the news media, and help communities connect with one other. They must be well-informed and knowledgeable, and are able to deliver news in a creative manner that is both informative and entertaining.
Photograph of a National Guardsman looking over the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., on January 21, 2021, the day after the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States
Barricades on rue Saint-Maur (1848), the first photo used to illustrate a newspaper story
The Crawlers, London, 1876–1877, a photograph from John Thomson's Street Life in London photo-documentary
The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung pioneered modern photojournalism and was widely copied. Pictured, the cover of issue of 26 August 1936: a meeting between Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola.
