Documentation

It’s a popular thing in photography to say you are documenting someone or something. But what does documenting really mean? For whom are you/we documenting?

Documentation implies an audience, and one with a critical eye. However, I think that most documentation these days isn’t intended for an audience other than social media, where each image might get a few seconds of attention.

Does it make documentation less valid to change the audience? I don’t subscribe to prescriptive language, so I say no. It just means that the definition of documentation has shifted between generations. I do, though, think it behooves us to ask who our audience is, and why they care what we document.

If nothing else, it helps get buy-in from subjects/sitters/collaborators.