When re-reading Lange and Taylor this weekend, I was struck by the declaration in the Foreword stating, "we adhere to the standards of documentary photography as we have conceived them." I expected to read on about these such standards but no explanation was found. Only a few generalizations come to mind, having never done documentary photography. I would think that the shots should be candid or unposed, which for the most part of true of this piece. I say for the most part because I wonder particularly about the man on p. 313. With a camera so close, wouldn't you be inclined to look at it? or was this man told to look away? and then it is no longer candid. Another standard could be that the photographs should have some meaning or relevance to the topic at hand, which Lange and Taylor were successful at executing.
What other standards do you think Lange and Taylor are referring to?
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I think that it's interesting that the first thing that comes to mind is that these photographs should be "candid". Candid snapshots didn't become popular, or even possible, until the development of the Kodak Brownie post WW2. Smaller format cameras, like the Leica rangefinder, were around earlier, but were generally out of cost range for all but professionals, and didn't hold the resolution necessary for printing in a publication at the time.
Most of the photographs that we're viewing were shot on a large format view camera, on a fairly slow speed film. All of these subjects were well aware that they were being photographed - there wasn't much in the way of flash those days, especially while travelling, so the exposures were generally long.
I think that the concept of documentary standards that was held by Evans and Lange was more along the line of not directly changing anything about the situation or subject that couldn't be altered in camera (by exposure or angle/lens choice), or in the darkroom by printing and cropping. Dirt wasn't added to peoples' faces, nor were clothes intentionally ripped or torn. Expressions weren't asked for, but may have been asked to be held.
It provided an illusion of truth, that may or may not be the case.
Currently, assuming the general honesty of a photographer (that they're not combining elements in photoshop - although similar effects are possible in the darkroom), it's much easier to get a "moment of truth" shot, although it's still tinted by the photographer's choice of angle, lens, f-stop, and film.
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