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This paper examines Lee Friedlander’s New Documentary photography within the context of the late 1960’s American society. The New Documentary photography refers to the works produced by a group of free-lancer photographers under the influence of unconventional style and techniques conceived by Robert Frank and William Klein. Their works have been regarded as something new due to their personalized expressions while they were inheriting the features of the conventional documentary photography, which was the recording of the reality. Among these photographers, especially Lee Friedlander, with the support of John Szarkowski, solidified his status as modernist in the genre of documentary photography through <New Documents> (1967) exhibition held in the Museum of Modern Art. In this sense, this paper starts with the critique of Szarkowski’s position. Whereas Szarkowski defined Friedlander’s photographs from the perspective of modernism, this paper tried to explore his works within a larger social field of the late 1960s’s America. Therefore, if Szarkowski concentrated on the formal aspects of Friedlander’s works when analyzing their images, this paper rather discusses them in association with the larger social phenomenon, such as postmodernity, and the contemporary visual cultures. Moreover, this paper also notes how the new representation systems of New Documentary can challenge the photographic representation itself. If the representation systems of documentary photography is based on the totalizing vision of the perspectival space and the dominant position of camera’s eye, those of New Documentary photography never espouse the dominant position of camera’s eye. The perspectival space is no longer sustained, and the coherent narratives of the image cannot be read any more. With these features, this paper sought to investigate how these new representation systems can be read as the symptom of the shift in the society. The huge transformation in the late 1960s’ America led to the change in the viewer’s position and spatial relationship in visual cultures. From this perspective, the new representation systems of New Documentary photography can be deemed as an alternative to the conventional photographic practices.

New Documentary photography, Lee Friedlander, the late 60s. Narrative, Visual space