The study of documentary has called for numerous approaches these past few years: historical, rhetorical, pragmatic, stylistic. These approaches question the reality in film or photography, the recurring problem of the documentary. And this question will be tackled again in this research. The intention of the outlined perspective is to integrate all these approaches by retracing the steps to the origins of photography, in the nineteenth century, and by asserting its specificity of image. A photographic journey is proposed showing how the photographic image was able to change drastically our relationship with reality. This synthetic ambition was inspired by an original concept initiated by the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer: the symbolic form. It is based on a cultural logic which suggests going to the heart of our realities and analyzing the principles which govern them. The core of such a philosophy lies in a culture contained as a relat! ive reality. In this light, is the photographic image as documentary considered as a place giving reality to thought? How? This research allows us to imagine three moments in the development of this specific symbolic form: 1) the invention of an image-world invoked by the photographic image; 2) the survival of the realities contained and transformed in this image-world; 3) the creation of a place of reference for an assembled photographic heritage.
