Berenice Abbott on Documentary Photography: Self-Awareness and Selectivity

Christie Dooley

In her 1951 publication Photography at the Crossroads, Berenice Abbott states that the world communicates through pictures almost more than words. People—and photographers—are increasingly aware of the present and pressed with the challenge of capturing it. Abbott herself responds to the present—she addresses current events, speaking of the “atom age” and the documentary role photographers play in such a volatile moment in history (which she refers to as "the crossroads").

Abbott summarizes the development of photography as a response to interest and demand, especially in restless and expanding America, where portraiture flourished. She frankly criticizes the commercialization of photography—the use of cheap props, the imitation of “bad paintings,” and the abandonment of realistic documentation for retouched and sentimental images by photographers like Henry Peach Robinson. As a result, all of the accessories and excessive darkroom procedures control photography more than creativity. Abbott describes a photograph as a selective and potent statement—a serious form of communication, a “means of expression.” To take a meaningful photograph, one must have a trained mind and choose content that relates to the real world. Finally, good photography is documentary.

Over sixty years later, Abbott’s self-aware conversation about the increased use photography and the resulting decline of artistic sensibility still applies to today's culture. I would say pictures have indeed replaced words as a means of communication. Social media is primarily composed of images—all phones have cameras and even cameras have internet connection! The mass distribution of pictures (which are usually edited) requires no selectivity—one can simply upload all 320 photographs of his trip to the zoo to a public site at once. Such photographs, individually, are not exactly what Abbott would consider “a fine photograph.” Though they might be valuable for social purposes, they often lack the discretion and vision “fine photographs” possess. Interestingly, our culture is even more self-conscious and self-making, and chooses photography to share every little detail of contemporary life.