New Documents was an influential[1] documentary photography exhibition at Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1967, curated by John Szarkowski.
[2] It presented photographs by Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand and is said to have "represented a shift in emphasis"[3] and "identified a new direction in photography: pictures that seemed to have a casual, snapshot-like look and subject matter so apparently ordinary that it was hard to categorize".
In the wall text for New Documents, John Szarkowski "suggested that until then the aim of documentary photography had been to show what was wrong with the world, as a way to generate interest in rectifying it.
Szarkowski explained that what "unites these three photographers is not style or sensibility; each has a distinct and personal sense of the use of photography and the meanings of the world.
"[5] This was "photography that emphasized the pathos and conflicts of modern life presented without editorializing or sentimentalizing but with a critical, observant eye.