ABSTRACT
McCausland's repudiation of the avant-gardes in this article in favour of documentary realism may seen crude now, but its was decidedly of its moment. The proof that documentary photography is not a fad or a vogue lies in the history of other movements in photography. From the Photo-Secession a few fine workers like Paul Strand, Edward Weston and Charles Sheeler, the best of their mature energies being best employed when they turn to newer and more objective purposes. That truth the people get from reading a financial page, a foreign cable, an unemployment survey report. For communication, the photograph has qualities equalled by no other pictorial medium. Actually there is no limit to the world of external reality the photographer may record. The cult of non-intelligibility and non-communication is no longer fashionable; only a fringe of survivors makes a virtue of a phrase which is a dead issue.
