Guide to Unique Photography

The most recent project of Dutch photographer Michel Szulc-Krzyzanowski (1949, Oosterhout) is called The most beautiful people in the world. In 2004 in Brazil, Szulc-Krzyzanowski started photographing people who responded to his newspaper ad, which asked if they found themselves the most beautiful person in the world. Since then, he has been inviting people from all over the world in the same way to take part in his project.

There is one photograph that should be in every general retrospective of documentary photography, but never is. The American LIFE and Magnum photographer W. Eugene Smith (1918 – 1978) took this particular image in 1972, when he was recording the effects of mercury poisoning on the local residents of the Japanese seaside town Minamata.

Only two years after starting his job at the London office of Magnum Photos, Jonas Bendiksen (Norway, 1977) packed his bags to start working as a photojournalist in the field.

Digital cameras, mobile phones with ultra-megapixel cameras and computers have pushed analogue photography to the background. Nowadays, photography is as accessible as watching TV. But new developments have also increased the interest in 19th and 20th century art photography.

For 40 years, Albania was weighed down by the severe communist Hoxha regime. Despite the fact that the regime was ousted, the people still suffer: Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe.

The word ‘documentary’ can be explained as ‘providing a factual record or report’. But facts and reports are two different things. Is documentary photography a representation of reality?