Documentary Photography, Robert King and Joe McNally

I watched the BBC 4 documentary on the war photographer Robert King recently. There were a few points which I found interesting:

Even when photographing distressing subjects, like dead bodies and body parts he mentioned that his mind switches itself off from the distressing nature of the subject and thinks in terms of composition even for body parts! To do this, he must have developed a subconscious appreciation of composition – let alone a cast iron stomach!

I also noticed this in a recent image on Joe McNally’s blog (http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/vsp-76.jpg) which was an image of skulls shot in Rwanda as part of a story on the Genocide. This is an image which fits into the compositional category of “Many”.

The point of documentary photography is to make the viewer aware of the issue associated with the image so composition makes the image jump out to the viewer. So I can understand why even when photographing distressing subjects, thinking about composition is still valid.

Robert King was also extremely naïve in the beginning but had a real sense of determination and tenacity about him – this is also a phrase I’ve heard from Joe McNally in listening to him recently –“A tenacity and determination to get the shot which drives creativity”.