Historical Value and Practical Significance of Documentary Photography

In the domestic print media in the late 1990s, thematic photography once flourished, however, this golden period only lasted for about three years. After entering the new century, the domestic paper media has become more market-oriented, the unprecedented expansion of advertising pages and the surge of newspaper information have seriously suppressed the living space of the special edition of photography, and theme photography has since entered the "cold winter".

Although the era of reading pictures is not over, and even the total time for readers to read pictures is increasing, the time for continuous reading pictures has been greatly reduced. To some extent, the function of pictures in paper media is simply considered to stimulate the senses and adjust the vision (beautify the layout). The leap-forward development of paper media, driven by commercial interests, let us miss a good opportunity to cultivate the visual culture of China readers, and let the print media hand over the important task and opportunity of "eye-catching" to the TV media, making its weakness and predicament more prominent than the electronic media.

Therefore, it is necessary for us to re-examine the essence, function, value, significance of the times and practical significance of thematic photography, and find a way out for its survival and development from the jungle of the market.

First, the essential characteristics of thematic photography

The essential feature of thematic photography is not the expression form of the manuscript, but the shooting technique, cultural connotation and story. The shooting technique of special topics pays special attention to vivid images, which plays a finishing role in capturing typical details. Almost every picture has a plot (story). For excellent thematic photography, each picture that constitutes the theme has both internal structure-it needs to be understood in the overall structure, and it has relatively independent appreciation value, and each picture can convey relatively rich and complete information. Therefore, extracting any picture from a special topic will not become a "waste film" that is difficult to use, and each picture has the value of independent use and reuse, which is the highest realm of excellent thematic photography.

Second, the humanistic value, communication value and market value of theme photography

Because thematic photography has cultural connotation, culture is relatively stable in social development, and the vitality of its reporting form and content is lasting, which will not lose its significance because of the changes of the times.

Thematic photography reports by telling stories, so it has obvious fragility in communication, especially in cross-cultural communication. It helps readers to understand life, the world and other cultures vividly, profoundly and emotionally. News pictures or news reports satisfy human beings' desire for knowledge, which is the basic need for survival, while theme photography satisfies the desire for understanding and care, which is the element of high-quality spiritual life.

Since thematic photography has extensive humanistic value and communication value, it must have market value. At present, the market of theme photography is mainly overseas, mainly magazines. Although this market has also passed the most glorious period, it is a mature, stable and high-return market, and the market demand is medium and long term. Even in the highly commercialized western society, thematic photography still occupies a certain share in the picture market, surpassing news photography. In contrast, the theme photography market in China is not prosperous now, which is mainly determined by the development path and characteristics of domestic media. Most domestic newspapers have cancelled or compressed the special edition of photography, and the trend of "homogenization" of newspapers is still intensifying, and there are not many newspapers with characteristics. Therefore, the demand for thematic photography manuscripts in the domestic market is extremely limited.

In addition, due to the immaturity and irregularity of the domestic photography market, the market price of this kind of manuscript has seriously deviated from its actual value, and it is often difficult to reflect the photographer's labor value and the social value of the manuscript. Therefore, many capable subject photographers have chosen the strategy of "going out" and worked directly for overseas magazines or photo agencies. To a certain extent, this makes the domestic theme photography market even weaker, and there are fewer and fewer excellent works presented to readers in China. Unfortunately, these photographers did shoot a lot of special topics, but it is difficult to "show their faces" in domestic newspapers and periodicals.

The erosion of the humanistic value and communication value of photography by commercial society-in a sense, it can be called subversion-has become increasingly serious since the mid-1990 s. Worldwide, commercial pictures account for 60% to 70% of the picture market. Some photographers who are not engaged in advertising photography also find commercial value in their own works. Some pictures that were not originally taken for commercial purposes are increasingly used to promote the image of products, services or enterprises. Judging from the situation of domestic paper media, the social functions of news photography and theme photography are increasingly commercialized, and the use of pictures is not entirely for the needs of reporting, but for the reading rate of the layout, the length of sight and the effect of advertising. As an independent expression (mode of communication), photography seems to have gained unprecedented publicity in appearance, but in fact it has been weakened and dominated. Third, the era significance and practical significance of theme photography

News photography is a combination of wonderful and simple, and it is a visual aesthetic activity; Theme photography is wonderful and simple, which increases the plot and meets people's curious psychological and emotional needs. Photography provides a simple, vivid and beautiful way for human beings to know the world. The visual bombing caused by continuous electronic images has caused the audience's visual fatigue and produced a lot of visual garbage. Linguists and sociologists love and hate the emergence of image hegemony. However, no matter how we look at it, we can't turn a blind eye to this fact, nor can we stay out of it.

There are two coexisting development trends in contemporary society, namely "McDonald's" and personalization. The former will make people become mechanical, simple and convergent, and lose the fun brought by colorful life, while the latter will make people become isolated, different and lose sympathy and cooperation. These two social trends will seriously weaken the social and psychological foundation on which theme photography depends: tenderness is replaced by violence, exquisiteness by simplicity, exquisiteness by nudity, and group value by individual value. Theme photography has encountered unprecedented value challenges. Therefore, a major theme and problem of contemporary western thematic photography is "seeking novelty" and "seeking change". Readers demand novelty, and photographers' reporting ideas and value choices will inevitably change. Traditional reporting techniques, themes and ideas are no longer suitable for the reading and psychological needs of contemporary audiences, and naturally they are not suitable for the needs of the market.

But no matter how it changes, as long as human beings still have basic emotional needs and everyone needs external understanding and care, thematic photography has its living space. It can be asserted that when emotion becomes a scarce resource of society, the social value of thematic photography will return.