The portrait genre serves various purposes beyond just glorifying individuals, uncovering hidden stories, or traditional poses. It can also be used in a documentary setting, where the subject represents a sociological group under study. In this context, the individual exceeds their personal narrative to become part of the social theme explored by the photographic project. The documentary portrait acts as a critical approach. While its use grew throughout the 20th century^, it only fully established itself as an independent form in the 21st century.

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August Sander is widely regarded as the pioneer of the documentary portrait. Some might even say he invented the documentary style within the portrait genre. In the 1920s, he launched an extensive project aimed at depicting Germans from all social backgrounds. His first book, Antlitz der Zeit (1929), was followed posthumously by the publication of his life’s work, Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (1980), which was fully reissued in 2022. Notably, Sander did not focus on a specific social group; instead, he created a visual atlas covering all societal strata. As Susanne Lange notes in her book August Sander (1999), these images reflect their era: “When the contemporary viewer looks at August Sander’s portraits, they are first confronted with an image of women, men and children who, through their clothing, surroundings and attributes, are easily recognisable as witnesses of their time. The historical dimension of the photographs creates a distance from the subjects, which becomes a record of earlier, seemingly clearly defined occupational and social classes.”

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For his atlas of typologies, Sander carefully formed subgroups and sought individuals to photograph within each subgroup. August Sander’s work visually represents the hierarchical structure and class relations of the Weimar Republic through archetypes of classes and professions. He started with farmers around Cologne, where his studio was located, then photographed landowners, workers, the unemployed, beggars, artists, industrialists, merchants, dignitaries, students, and politicians, paying special attention to minorities and outsiders. For example, he photographed female artists, gypsies, and fairground performers, including African artists. The most notable part of Sander’s body of work is his documentation of the most disadvantaged, capturing images of the sick, disabled, and dying. Remarkably, he approached all groups with objectivity and detachment, avoiding subjective judgments, though opinions differ on this. Sander described his approach in a 1927 lecture, Mein Bekenntnis, saying: “Nothing seemed more appropriate to me than to use photography to provide a contemporary image of our time in absolute fidelity to nature,” clearly emphasising his documentary purpose. He aimed to create a comprehensive, unbiased physiognomy of his era, without singling out any particular group.

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The freaks of Arbus

Diane Arbus created distinctive documentary portraits in New York. Unlike August Sander, whose work she knew, she focused on a specific group: societal outcasts like dwarfs, transvestites, people with intellectual disabilities, topless dancers, and fairground performers—collectively called ‘freaks’. Her portraits reflected her feelings of being an outsider herself, despite coming from a wealthy Jewish background. Arbus’s raw images questioned societal tolerance in the 1960s, portraying those despised by the establishment. Critics, notably Susan Sontag in her 1973 book On Photography, argued that her collection was anti-humanistic and implied universal alienation, dismissing its political and social significance. However, Arbus’s goal was to offer a psychological reflection of her own sense of alienation, not to make activist statements. Her portraits, confrontational then, can be seen today as compassionate, highlighting her humanist perspective. Recent opinions recognise her work’s social impact and emancipatory power, with Sebastian Smee’s 2022 review in The Washington Post emphasising that her subjects are now seen as fellow human beings, illustrating her influence.

Richard Avedon holds a significant place in the history of documentary portraiture. In 1979, he was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth to document the American West. Over five summers, Avedon used his 8x10-inch Deardorff camera and a white backdrop to photograph Americans, often on society's margins—homeless individuals, cowboys, factory workers, pensioners, and migrants. He attended festivals and local celebrations in search of his subjects. In 1985, alongside the exhibition, he published the book In the American West, featuring 124 portraits chosen from 17,000 large-format images. This work, considered his magnum opus, became an influential series that critically examined the mythologised American West, a theme prevalent in films and literature. The photographs are evenly lit, sharply focused, and confrontational, with subjects gazing directly into the camera, revealing the darker side of modern capitalism's accomplishments.

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Aestheticisation and objective truth

His work was not without controversy. A discrepancy arose in the interpretation of his work because Richard Avedon regarded his documentary project as an art project. He once said that all his photographs were, in fact, self-portraits and that, whilst his photographs were accurate, they did not contain the truth, thereby undermining the documentary aspect of his work. In his book The Contest of Meaning (1989), Richard Bolton criticised Avedon in a similar way to how Sontag criticised Arbus. He writes that Avedon emphasised the ugliness of his models by printing them sharply and in large format. But Bolton finds the detachment of Avedon’s positioning of people against a flat white backdrop even more troubling: “By de-contextualising and magnifying these peculiarities, Avedon silences his subjects.” According to Bolton, Avedon created a gallery of mythical archetypes. He wrote that Avedon ignored social differences and expected the viewer to believe in the neutral physiognomy of those portrayed. He finds the portraits voyeuristic, noting that they offer no insight into, or understanding of, the underlying class relations.

Bolton strikes a nerve here, one that affects all photography the moment the medium is incorporated into the world of art, with all its associated connotations and power relations. In the work of Richard Avedon, we see both the descriptive power and the shortcomings of the documentary portrait, which rests on two foundations: the documentary and the autonomous. Through aestheticisation, the narrative's power can shift to the viewer’s agency and the context of the art experience. Through the museum presentation, in which the social context remains in the background, the socio-political narrative can fade. On the other hand, the contrast between document and art may well be outdated, and a photographer’s subjective perspective need not undermine the meaning of a photo series. None of the documentary portrait photographers sought objective truth; rather, they sought to depict people who were never depicted in mainstream media, advertising, or art. This was partly true of Richard Avedon, for, as Erik Palmer notes in his dissertation Seeing Richard Avedon (2008), Avedon featured almost no African Americans in his series. Palmer attributes this not to a form of racism but to Avedon’s specific interest in individuals with whom he could identify, and to the fact that the inclusion of African Americans would have given the series an overtly urban character, whereas the people in the book predominantly have a rural air about them. Palmer refutes Bolton’s assumption that Avedon photographed his subjects in a submissive position from a position of capitalist condescension. According to Palmer, the people in the images possess sufficient agency to consciously carve out a place for themselves in society.

What makes Richard Avedon’s project noteworthy is that his portraits are neutral and uniformly composed, encouraging viewers to approach the subjects with an open mind. The socio-political messages are left open for individual interpretation. Palmer states, “(…) The idea that Avedon could have ensured a specific outcome for the viewers of the Western portraits is a pursuit of a false hope in a totalising ethical ideal as the sole standard for success.”

The documentary portrait has become increasingly prominent in photographic strategy over recent decades. An increasing number of photographers recognize the power of individual images as reflections of social groups. They use portraits to illustrate social themes, often creating series that are open in both form and content. Social connotations are frequently implied indirectly through subject selection without being overly prescriptive. Nearly all modern portrait series draw inspiration from August Sander's work, either directly or indirectly.

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Exploring identity and social diversity

Over fifteen years, Joel Sternfeld photographed Americans from various backgrounds for his book Stranger Passing (2012). Following the tradition of documentary portraiture, he shifts the focus from archetypes to individual encounters: it’s not about representing a typical model but about capturing each person’s appearance in its natural, dignified state. His use of colour, careful compositions, and high-resolution large-format camera make his subjects feel both intimate and distant, like strangers glancing your way for a moment while their stories remain open. For Sternfeld, the portrait becomes a way to explore identity and social diversity, in which the casual nature of these encounters takes on more profound meaning within the project's context.

Richard Renaldi, another American photographer, created a similar book titled Figure and Ground (2006) during road trips across the US. His portraits showcase America’s ethnic and social diversity in a kaleidoscopic collection, with a frequent focus on the underclass. In Touching Strangers (2017), Renaldi did not explore the subjects’ backgrounds, but instead highlighted the relationships between people. For this project, he placed two strangers side by side, revealing how awkward social interactions can be. This approach makes his work unique in documentary portraiture: instead of documenting existing relationships, he creates a temporary social situation and captures it visually. By asking strangers to touch and photographing them with a large-format camera, he captures a moment of closeness and trust, examining how body language and posture express social codes of distance and intimacy often influenced by age, class, or background.

Imperial Courts (2015), a project by Dana Lixenberg consisting of a photo book and a video, explores a Los Angeles neighbourhood of the same name, notorious for crime and violence. Instead of highlighting its darker aspects, Lixenberg dedicated years—from 1993 to 2015—to capturing its residents with honesty and restraint using a 4×5-inch camera. Although the photos were taken on-site, they concentrate mainly on individuals rather than their environment. She aimed to challenge the sensationalist media images that had stigmatised the area.

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Social purposes

Documentary portraits can serve social purposes by focusing on specific groups and driven by political motives. Gideon Mendel has developed several documentary series using portraiture as a genre: Drowning World (2015–present) and Burning World (2019–present), where he depicts individuals affected by floods and wildfires. Mendel’s approach is unique because he sets the themes himself, originating from a photojournalistic background but employing portraiture. Similarly, South African photographer Thom Pierce has made documentary portraiture his default method. He visualizes subjects from socio-political angles, with some projects aimed at shaping public opinion. For example, in The Objectors, Pierce depicted conscientious objectors to military service in South Africa; in The Price of Gold, he documented miners suffering from silicosis during a legal dispute with gold mine operators; and for The Defenders, commissioned by The Guardian, he captured environmental activists worldwide.

Portraits are also used in political struggles, as Émeric Lhuisset did with his book Maydan – Hundred Portraits (2014) about Ukrainian freedom fighters during the Maidan protests. In 2022, he followed this up with his project Ukraine – Hundred Faces, in which he portrayed Ukrainian civilians who have taken up arms to fight for their country.

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Social function of art

In its critical form, the portrait genre has evolved beyond merely depicting an individual. Unlike psychological portraits, which focus on personal inner states, the documentary portrait emphasises the social group, class, or historical condition to which the person belongs. The subject functions as a photographic metonym, representing a broader social narrative. Their facial features, clothing, posture, environment, and physical presence are not only aesthetic elements but also signs that can be read from political, cultural, and social perspectives.

This gives the documentary portrait a particular value within photography. It allows the camera to connect the individual life with the collective experience. A single face can suggest wider realities such as poverty, labour, migration, gender, race, exclusion, resistance, or survival. In this way, the portrait becomes more than a representation of appearance; it becomes a visual document of social conditions. The viewer is encouraged to look beyond the surface of the image and consider the structures that shape the subject’s life.

However, documentary portraiture also carries ethical risks. Because one person may be used to represent a larger group, there is a danger of simplifying complex identities or reinforcing stereotypes. A photograph can easily reduce someone to a symbol of suffering, class, ethnicity, or social difference. For this reason, context is essential. Details such as setting, gesture, caption, sequence, and the photographer’s approach help clarify the intention of the image. They can prevent the subject from becoming a passive object and instead allow them to appear as part of a larger, meaningful reality.

A comprehensive story in a documentary portrait requires contextual background. Rather than offering a definitive explanation, the image encourages viewers to question, interpret, and explore the story behind the photograph. It fosters a space between raw evidence and personal interpretation, bridging the individual face and the social context it refers to.