การศึกษาประโยชน์และข้อควรคำนึงในการประยุกต์ใช้ แนวทางภาพถ่ายศิลปะร่วมสมัยกับงานสารคดีในไทย

Abstract

                   Documentary photography has been changed periodically through time and it has absorbed other photographic forms and methods to construct the approach to tell stories. While tradition documentary photography binds itself to the concept of truth but nowadays documentary is not concern only truth but also artistic expression since it receives strong influencefrom other art approaches. Recently, contemporary art photography is more popular among practitioners and is gaining more and more influenceson documentary photography as could be seen in foreign documentary photograph. It is interesting to study how contemporary art photography affects documentary in Thailand. What are opinions of editors and photographers about negatives and benefit from fusing two approaches together?
                   This research focuses on printed-documentary-photographs in Thai documentary photographic magazines which presented in photo essay. It has been found that Thai documentary photograph has already combined some approaches from contemporary art photography; however, the adaptation is quite not clear since it appears as single or couple of images in the set or essay. The main reasons are that Thai documentary still attaches to the traditional concept of documentary, limitations of print media or magazine direction and the target audiences which still familiar with previous documentary presentation. Moreover, editors and photographers also have limit understanding about contemporary art photography while they are mainly focus on how to preserve truth. These factors become working framework that control photographers to continue with the tradition or previous method.
                   Combination of two approaches in Thai context may create new possibilities, to allow photographers to tell same stories with new angle which will surely appeal more audiences. Image construction will also help reducing costs which are budget and time; however, photographer needs to make sure that truth is well preserved. Photographers require to study and understand the real concepts of contemporary art photography firstbefore applying contemporary art approaches into documentary work.