Photography as a social and humanist document. Reasons and reflections on the photographic document

Abstract

This article addresses the topic of photography as a social and humanist document and analyzes different theories about the image and photographic representation as a document, addressing the photography from its appearance to the present in its different techniques and formats. The objective of this research is to argue photography as a social and humanist document, which is useful for teaching, raising awareness and creating collective visual memory, since it is a transmittable testimony of a social community. The methodology used is qualitative and theoretical-practical in style. Texts by fundamental authors in the study of the photographic document are analyzed to develop it and a group of humanistic photos created exclusively by the first of the authors of this text is presented. The general conclusion of the research is that photography is part of the social and humanistic iconographic documentation, both for its support and for its image, which teaches and raises awareness to the extent that it shows human quality, while communicating and informing instantly and transmits from the past to the present or future like any other type of document, creating part of the collective visual memory of society.