ABSTRACT
Documentary photography, as I am writing about it here, I understand as a praxis and phronesis for visualising the object of the social sciences; a reflexive process of thoughtful and ethical social interaction whose value combines history, observation and aesthetics in a discourse over time. Recent discussions about photography frequently concentrate on two primary perspectives: as a medium of illustration and source of data in a complex of sociological methods, and as a visualising text, often made by others, to be passively read, analysed and evaluated (Banks 2007; Rose 2001/2006). Both perspectives assume that photographs offer a description of knowledge as data and a correspondence to an empirical truth as evidence. Neither perspective offers insight into the social interaction, interpretation and reflexive process of making documentary photography. Yet there is much to be learned from doing so and, in referring to recent comments about this weakness by Becker and Banks, I am making this my starting point for discussion (Banks 2007; Becker 1994).
