Documentary photography has long thought of itself as performing an important societal function. Although it is certainly capable of this, documentary discourse remains caught between imprecise ‘social justice’ ambitions and limited critiques of the ‘ethics’ of documentary work. This practice-led research seeks to reframe the practices and discourses of documentary through recent scholarship that synthesises photography and political theory. Ariella Aisha Azoulay’s rethinking of the category of ‘the political’ is central to enabling what she refers to as the emergence of the civil—defined as “the interest that citizens display in themselves, in others, in their shared forms of coexistence, as well as in the world that they create and nurture”. I use this understanding, in combination with my practice, to establish a civil framework for documentary praxis that can more clearly demonstrate civil intention and enable civil discourse. This framework is elaborated through four practice-led case study projects which explore a variety of contextually relevant approaches and presentation platforms that attempt to explore the political ontology of photography and its potential to operate as a platform for social relations.