Part One - Photograph as document: Project Four - The gallery wall - documentary as art: Exercise - Documentary

The exercise requires us to review images from Sarah Pickering's series Public Order available from her website.  We are asked to consider:

• How do these images make us feel?
• Whether Public Order is an effective use of documentary or is it misleading?

First of all, if I hadn't read in the course materials that the images were taken in police training grounds, I would not have been able to tell that from looking at the images online.  But, the conclusion that I would have come to is that photographs might have been from a TV set.  It's clear from the images that the buildings are facades only, and that there is an absence of real life.  And although there is the presence of debris, it appears ordered and designed.  Other than curious about the construction of the sets and relief that the police have somewhere to train, these images don't really make me feel anything.  I certainly don't feel uncomfortable or disturbed.

So to answer the second question, I need to suspend disbelief as I know too much already about this series.  If the purpose of the documentary is to present police training grounds, then yes it is effective.  If the purpose is anything else, i.e. to show the impact of social chaos, or why we need a police force in the first place, then the answer is no, it is not effective.  Although compositionally pleasing, the images in Public Order have the impression of being clearly contrived. There are plenty of real life situations that you can photograph that would do this trick better, for example, a picture I took of a weapons deposit bin in Feltham for Assignment One:

I find this far more chilling and a subject that raises a lot more questions than an articially created environment that has a distinct purpose.  For instance, if I didn't know the area, the first thing I would ask is why there is a weapons bin so close to residential housing (the building directly behind).

Websites:

• Pickering, S. (n.d.) Public Order available from http://www.sarahpickering.co.uk/Works/Pulic-Order/workpg-01.html [accessed 28 September 2014]