Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional

Professional

A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...

 photojournalism

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism...

, but it may also be an amateur

Amateur

An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....

, artistic, or academic pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography

Candid photography

Candid photography is photography that focuses on spontaneity rather than technique, on the immersion of a camera within events rather than focusing on setting up a staged situation or on preparing a lengthy camera setup.-Description:...

 of a particular subject, most often pictures of people.
The term documentary applied to photography antedates the mode or genre itself.