professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur or student pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people. The pictures usually depict a certain perspective of the photographer.

Usually such photographs are meant for publication, but are sometimes only for exhibition in an art gallery or other public forum. Sometimes an organization or company will commission documentary photography of its activities, but the pictures will only be for its private archives.

If the aim is simply to document something - costume for instance - then sometimes posing people is the best way to make the required clear documentary picture. For instance, the posed "straight up" style of picture pioneered by iD magazine - these were of punks and New Wave youth found on English streets and simply asked to stand against any nearby blank wall. The resulting pictures - the subjects facing the camera and seen from "top to toe" - are a vivid historical documentary photography archive, and have established the posed "straight up" as a valid style of documentary picture-making.

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Photographers / Videographers by specialty

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