What Makes a Document?

I believe all photographs qualify as documents, in that they are, in John Berger's words - 'a trace naturally left by something that has passed'. It is time and context that gives value to a photographic document. A photograph of a person standing in front of a plain wall might have little value to the world at large, but to that person's mother would be very precious. The meaning and importance of an image can change over time, when further events happen or come to light, as happened with Jose's balloon image.

I believe hindsight can also affect the meaning of an image.A group photograph of Jimmy saville with a group of schoolchildren might have made a mildly interesting tabloid picture at the time, but now, with hindsight, such images have a dark, sinister overtone. People's perception of an image has changed with new knowledge of the situation that was ongoing at the time, even though the image itself hasn't changed. What was happening at the time has not changed either, it's just that we now know about it, which shows such images in a different light.

How much we know of the circumstances of an image dictates to a large extent how useful it is as a document. A photograph can be attractive to look at, even when we don't know what it is we are looking at, however its usefulness as a document is impeded when supporting information (in the form of text, or additional images) is limited. Having no prior knowledge of Jose's photograph in Spain, I simply see two figures standing in front of a wall. The one on the left is evidently military, but I wouldn't neccessarily have guessed the one on the right is a religious figure, as the style of dress is unfamiliar to me. It is difficult to see with such a small image, but it appears that the military figure is smiling, and the religious figure is not. Is this significant? I enjoyed John Berger's example in his esssay 'Appearances' of the image of the smiling man and the horse. He recognises that with no contextual information, the viewer is forced to conjure their own interpretation of the scene. Would I look at Jose's image and see two friends? or would I see the man on the right fearful of his immediate future, and the man on the left relishing the thought of executing his prisoner?

Authenticity is another interesting facet to this debate. In Robert Fenton's famous photograph 'The Shadow of the Valley of Death', he had moved the cannonballs onto the road from elsewhere, presumably to dramatise the image. It is a staged photograph, however I believe that this doesn't make it less of a document, but that its documentary focus has shifted. The image still records a scene where fighting took place (but not as it turns out where the charge of the light brigade happened), and it still records the actual cannonballs used in the battle. Bearing these facts in mind, the photograph is a document. It is however documenting a slice of time not from the original battle, but from from the moment the image was being made. In effect I would treat it similar to an image taken of a battle re-enactment. On the sliding scale of value however, Fenton's would register more valuable due to its proximity time-wise to the actual event.

To sum up my thoughts of 'what makes a document?' - A photograph becomes a document the moment the shutter is pressed, but its documentary value is based on a flexible, fluid, sliding scale, which is influenced by context and time.