Top Three Social Documentary Photographers in History
Jacob Riis is arguably the original founder of social documentary photography. His work not only recorded an important reality during a time in American history, his work actually led to social change, which are the ultimate aims of social documentary photography: documenting history for the future, and creating social change for the better.
Riis is also known as the original “Muckraker” which became part of a social movement that included reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers in the Progressive Era.
This is a good video on Riis that revisit the 2016 exhibit held at the Library of Congress showing many notable photographs of poverty & poor living conditions taken by the Danish American social reformer, Jacob Riis.
His book led to a decade of improvements in Lower East Side conditions, with sewers, garbage collection, and indoor plumbing all following soon after, thanks to public reaction.
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York Paperback
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange’s documentary work in the 1930s and 1940s set a standard for photography. In this book, her photographs are presented with context and details, and in the photo essay format that the Farm Security Administration had in mind when they commissioned this large scale project.
Dorothea Lange Book One (Farm Security Administration Photographs) Paperback
William Eugene Smith
Let Truth Be The Prejudice documents the life and work of W. Eugene Smith, a man whose work expanded the range and depth of photography, bringing new aesthetic and moral power to the photo essay.
Let Truth Be the Prejudice: W. Eugene Smith His Life and Photographs Hardcover
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