A social issue is a problem that affects a large number of people within society. This is often a conflicting opinion based on what is perceived as a moral right. Social issues are impacting the world as we go about our daily lives. Photography is a key element in documenting these social problems, for example poverty, homelessness or even hunger. I specifically chose to analyze homelessness in today's society and explore how social documentary photography helped influence viewers of this horrific event and whether it created awareness. Before that, I will look at where social documentary photography originated and where it has taken us through history to today. It is a form of documentary photography, aiming to draw public attention to ongoing social issues sometimes in a specific time period. It can also refer to a socially critical genre of photography dedicated to showing the lives of disadvantaged or underprivileged people - (2). Social documentary photography has been and still is an act of raising awareness by documenting those without privilege and shocking those who go about their daily lives without lowering their gaze or thinking about those who are less than them within society. But how much has social documentary photography influenced society? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Social documentary photography originated in the 20th century (although documentation in photographic form began in the 19th century) with the work of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) practical photography industry in the USA. The FSA hired photographers and writers to expose and document the lives, as well as document the dangerous and difficult work of poor and disadvantaged farmers. Photographers documented the dire situation of these farmers, whose existence was threatened due to America's continuing problems during the American Depression. The FSA was ""attempting to restore confidence in American society"" (10). The reality is that Americans were victims of disasters such as dust bowls that spiraled out of their control during the time of the Great Depression in America. (10) All this has created a new photographic style of documenting social problems. Over the years, social documentary photography has moved on to document poverty during wars and the suffering of certain races and religions. Nowadays, we have started to solve these social problems and now we are focusing on what is happening now. Poverty is still a huge problem affecting millions of people in the UK, not to mention other countries where the figures are higher. Poverty can be being homeless as well as not being able to afford the daily essentials of water and food. This can be caused by low income, high costs of daily necessities, low levels of education, as well as discrimination and weak relationships (6). Social documentary photographers are raising awareness by documenting the daily lives of the less fortunate or taking terrifying images to shock viewers, thereby creating a great impact that drives awareness. Photographer Lee Jefferies is doing exactly that. First, get to know people on the street by sleeping with them and listening to their stories, then explaining that you want to raise public awareness through photography. The images taken are disturbing and shocking butthey did their job. With all images sold, some of the money goes to the homeless people who allowed their photo to be taken and the rest to homeless charities (7,8,9). Social documentary photography is an act of raising awareness by documenting those who are underprivileged and shocks those who live their daily lives without lowering their gaze or thinking about those who are less than them within society. All this documenting started in the 19th century.Century. In the 20th century, photographers were hired by the FSA (Farm Security Administration) to document the dangerous and difficult work of poor farmers. During the time of the Great Depression in America. All this has created a new form of documentary photography documenting social problems. Arthur Rothstein - Social documentary photographer - photo of a farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, 1936. ""Every day was pretty much the same then. For a three-year-old, you go out and play and blow dust and blow sand, and you don't know any different. One evening a black duster arrived here from the north. We had kerosene lamps. And it was so dark you couldn't see with the kerosene lamps. —Darrel Coble. (the boy on the right in the photograph, remembering his Dust Bowl days as an adult)"" - (6)FSA photographs created sympathy for citizen farmers through wide distribution in newspapers and magazines during that period. As expected, these photographs also demonstrated how necessary government assistance programs were for the survival of those most affected by the depression and dust storm disasters. - (6) The combined effects of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought devastated the country physically, financially, and emotionally in the 1930s. The Great Depression began with a severe economic recession in 1929 and lasted more than a decade. Frantic speculation in the stock market, particularly by investors borrowing money to buy shares, drove the market to unreasonably high levels. When stocks began to lose value, panic gripped investors. The huge sell-off that followed plunged the country into years of high unemployment and bank closures. By a terrible coincidence, the Dust Bowl disaster began around the same time as the Great Depression. Extreme weather patterns have brought drought and strong winds to the Southern Plains. This primarily affected Texas and Oklahoma, as well as western Kansas and eastern areas of Colorado and New Mexico. The lands were already damaged by hard-rooted soils due to drying out, and other pieces of land were over-cultivated. Drought along with violent winds further depleted the soil, creating frightening dust storms - (6). My perception/viewpoint... This picture shows me the terrible daily life of a farmer in America during the time of the Great Depression and the dust bowls which happened pretty close to the same time. It was a horrible time for Americans and everyone had the American dream in their heads as the reality was far from the dream. Their house is an old shed-like building that looks worn and broken, which tells me the high poverty in this horrendous time. As a viewer, I feel like this has impacted me in a way where I feel more grateful for the house I live in and the conditions I live in. Seeing this image, the impact on society should have been huge at that time with the feeling of wanting to change, change to the need for change. The image shows how isolated people were in those times, suggesting not only thatthat the conditions were terrible but that life was quite sad and lonely. This is why people in that period have many children. Other images from this period included Dorothea Lange's photograph "Migrant Mother", taken in 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression. The viewer can see the sad and hopeless look on the mother's appearance, making the viewer wonder what she is worried about. Are you worried about your family? Does he wonder how he will prepare the food on his table for that day? Will her children be okay for just one more day? Social documentary photography continued throughout the year, documenting social events, issues and problems. These included wars and battles, protests and poverty. Here is a famous image by John Florea, a war photographer who spent time in concentration camps documenting in photographic form the reality and truth of the camps and the conditions within them. Giovanni Florea (1916 – 2000) (1) had photographs that ranged dramatically from comic images such as "Columnist Sidney and Bob Hope, Hollywood, 1943" to concentration camps. These brutal images during the war are horrible to see and therefore create social awareness when shared with the media and newspapers. John Florea - The bodies of 3000 Nazi slaves being prepared for burial, Nrdhausen, Germany, 1945. My perception of this image shows the real horrific impact of the Nazis towards the slaves of the war which included the Jewish community and the captured. Once they become useless slaves, they are gassed or shot. Most died of starvation or disease because they had little food and almost no hygiene or healthcare. The way they are lined up in a row makes them look like criminals, as if it is because of their religion or the fact that they are from a different (foreign) country. Furthermore, they are wrong in what they believe and go against Hitler, so they deserve to be punished. Furthermore, conflict is created, even though they are all different people, Jews are put on the same level because of what they believe and therefore treated like criminals. Furthermore, the Nazis look down on them as if they had done greater good for their country by getting rid of those who are known to be successful and wealthy, being a "prize" in Hitler's eyes. Anyone who goes against Hitler's beliefs and rules is considered a threat. Other than that, the place looks like a dumping ground for the Nazis, where they pile them (the Jews) up ready to be buried en masse or burned the same way we do with garbage that can't be reused. Furthermore, the soldiers leave as if it were the end of their working day, this being their normal daily life. The image has a one-point perspective with the endless rows of corpses leading eventually to this dark silhouette; this gives the image a hellish feel, as if the bodies are being sucked towards the end of their lives, ready to be burned into the depths of non-existence. Overall, the image disturbs me with the idea of ​​death and the thought that one person's opinion managed to end the lives of countless innocent people. It also makes me feel useless as a viewer to his past and nothing I can do can bring these Jews back. If I had seen this image at that moment (1945), I would have been horrified and with all my might I would have wanted to act to stop this madness. “Sometimes they got the picture that no one asked for,” wrote the editors of LIFE in November 5, 1945. - (2) “Some people, like Robert Capa, knew what war was before. Not John Florea,” says Feyeux. “You can feel it in the photos. It was a terrible shock for him." - (2) “Have you ever been hitreally hard in your stomach and you lost your breath and fell to your knees? You know how much it hurts," Florea told fellow LIFE photographer John Loengard in 1993, reflecting on his time as a war correspondent. "I felt someone hit me so hard, I actually cried." - (2) These statements make me inform that the images captured by these (social) documentary photographers had a huge impact at the time of the war as they were terrifying and shocking. Almost all the people who look at them cannot help but cry and be heartbroken, at most they can protest This is the horrible reality of social documentary photography, you can watch but not always respond to make a change, but the impact on opinions was there. In reality these deaths were the victims of the American terrorist attack in Nordhausen on the 4th April 1945. Even though World War II was coming to an end, German cities continued to be bombed. As a result, the city of Nordhausen was almost completely bombed. destroyed the entire city. April 4 came two days before the evacuation of the Bergen-Belsen camp resulted in tragic and needless deaths due to the destruction of the Boelke barracks where the inmates were housed. 'The bodies of nearly 3,000 slave laborers buried by American soldiers. - (2) John Florea - Prisoner in the barracks of the Nordhausen concentration camp, Germany, 1945. This is another image by John Florea showing the conditions in which prisoners of war had to live, the shadow covering the eyes of the man is deep and dark which leads to the desperate look as he stares at the camera. Furthermore, the shadow also shows the bone definitions inside his face, he is underweight, most likely starving. The way he is sitting suggests he is weak with his arm lifting his body just to sit. The light pours into the image but has been guided around wires and barricades, it's as if there is no way out. Social documentary photography is something that many photographers have continually approached over the decades, most commonly documenting modern-day protests and poverty. One photographer who has taken up social documentary photography is Lee Jefferies who captures intimate photos of the homeless to create awareness for people who are ignored on the streets. Lee Jefferies is an accountant and amateur sports photographer. He creates intimate portraits of the homeless, done in horrific detail that can be perceived as “uncomfortable” with “every speck of dirt and every scar laid bare” (1). It all started with Jefferies in London before running the marathon where he went to take photos. He noticed among the crowd that there was a young homeless woman in the doorway of a shop in Leicester Square who passed by and was not noticed by the colossal amount of tourists. Jefferies decided to photograph her, but kept his distance. Noticing this, "she made quite a fuss" - Jefferies (1). Jefferies spoke to the girl to find out her story and from that moment his project of capturing intimate shots of homeless people in order to raise awareness and funds for the homeless was born. He pays his "subjects" for the photos he takes and continues to help them even after their photos make money. Some homeless people aren't as keen as others to let Jefferies take the photo and this project has had its risks as Jefferies has even had a gun pointed at his head and been asked for money, even though he still pays everyone. This is self-funded. Jefferies chooses his “subjects” through selecting the time he can “see something in their eyes” and feel the emotion otherwise the image “won't work” and will therefore lack impact. - (1). Jefferies initially takes everything back in stylenatural, with natural lighting and capturing the camera in black and white. He then edits photos to give them this grainy look and create impact and emotion in his images. He claims this makes his photographs more “artistic” - (1). This image steals my heart as a viewer making me feel helpless to provide for this little girl. His eyes are the first to pop out for me, tearing up and telling his story, just with a sad look. While we can't find out this little girl's story, you can make suggestions about what she may have been through. This could be anything from abandonment to her parents living with her on the streets because they couldn't afford a house or even the little girl running away from home. The way he looks up creates dark shadows not only below but also above his eyes; she is tired and weak. Bags under her eyes suggest lack of sleep, this could be due to road conditions where she may be too scared or cold to sleep. Furthermore, his face seems slightly contracted, as if he is trying to hold back all his emotions and repress his feelings; he is on the verge of tears. Not only that, but his clothes are dirty, suggesting he has nothing else on. Looking closer, it seems that the clothes are a kind of uniform for school, she attends school and receives the education she deserves as a child with the right to learn and have the same chances in life as everyone else. Additionally, her hair falls across her face in clumps, this suggests to me as a viewer that she has nowhere to clean herself and shower as the grease makes her hair dull and clumped together. Overall, the sad and desperate look that the little girl expresses in this image captured by Lee Jefferies is heartbreaking and will surely create a wider impact to think about those forgotten on the streets. With the grainy editing that Jefferies uses in his images, he is able to reach the height of impact by further extracting all the little details on the homeless people's faces for us as viewers to interpret the horrible reality of the homeless person's story. This image is another one from Lee Jefferies, here I am showing that homeless people can range from all ages and genders and as you can imagine, Lee Jefferies has met a wide variety of people in his time doing this project about homelessness, all with stories different. With this man he looks really old and tired with all the wrinkles covering his face. Not only that, his face is distorted but this time it's not sadness, it's more anger and aggression. This may suggest to the viewer that this man has turned to drugs and alcohol to stave off the sadness and pain. Looking deeper, I can see someone who perhaps has taken risks and, along with the anger, this could suggest that they may have been very successful in life before becoming homeless. One eye is closed, this opens up questions to the viewer, intriguing them into the photo, therefore creating impact, which is what Jefferies set out to do. Lastly, his hair has grown out and matted (not neat), which suggests to me that he has been homeless for a few months, maybe even years. Overall, the range of people that Jefferies meets allows his photos seen together to create a greater impact on the people who view them as it shows the variety of emotions that homeless people go through and the variety of ages and genders that come together to create a huge impact within society within social documentary photography today. Jefferies as a photographer has managed to create awareness in the use of intimate and close-up photography and this comes under the element of social documentary photography. Keep in mind: this is.