Documentary as a practice

As I begin to consider what it means to document, I have been thinking a lot about autonomy and rawness. How one can capture a person without disrupting the scene in which they exist. Almost like an electron! People shift and squirm under the perceived scrutiny of a lens. They begin to manufacture what they expect you to want, and thus it becomes about you, the photographer, and not the subject. I do not find joy in centring my practice around myself. My touch comes into the composition of an image, the way in which it is captured, but not in the subject itself. Otherwise, I’d just take self portraits! Defeats the purpose for me. And so I wonder how to engage with the world and people in such a way that my gaze and lens does not impose a sense of urgency or need or expectation but rather a calm observation. Documentary is quite difficult when it involves people, and I’m really excited to learn.