Social documentary photography

Social documentary photography is the recording of humans in their natural condition with a camera. Often it also refers to a socially critical genre of photography dedicated to showing the life of underprivileged or disadvantaged people.

 Child laborer, Lewis Hine, USA, 1908

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_documentary_photography

Documentary Photography refers to the area of photography in which pictures are used as historical documents. Rather than serving as a source of art or aesthetic pleasure, documentary photography is often used to incite political and social change due to its ability to capture the “true” nature of an image or location. In simple terms, this school of photography uses pictures as documented evidence of a particular situation.
 
http://urdu-mag.com/blog/2012/09/beautiful-documentary-photography-25-photo/

Social Documentary Photography: Bringing Awareness and Change

Social documentary photography seeks to bring attention to social issues around the world. Unlike news photography, sites for social documentary photographers have a point of view and believe they can advance a cause, such as human and civil rights, and bring awareness and change through the power of photography.

 http://theactivistwriter.com/2010/08/10/social-documentary-photography-bringing-awareness-and-change/

      'Most of the documentary styled photography we see, is a part of our daily routine, when we read news articles. It usually is a part of a story and it either makes us want to read an article or skip it.

It is a quick message, which grabs our attention. It makes the content of the story more real and emotional. 

      Throughout the history, there were a lot of talented photographers, who used to chronicle different major events, including riots,wars, revolutions and depressions.Some images were so influential that they changed the way people think.'

  Philip Jones Griffiths - one of the best war photographers

 http://pregnantwhalescanboogie.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/documentary-photography.html

  A heroin addict is being injected by his friend on a roadside in Pakistan in the early morning. Photo by Yusuke Harada from “Behind the War on Terror” on SocialDocumentary.net.
 
Often a photographer will spend years on the ground immersed in the culture, geography and politics of a situation. The photographer’s work might be purchased by a newspaper, magazine or Web site to illustrate an article, but almost invariably the photo is used to illustrate a point conceived by the buyer of the image and the photographer has little or no control over the writing and editing. 

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102090/Documentary-Photographers-Have-Their-Say-in-Words-and-Pictures.aspx