Cities and Photography (Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City)

Photographs display attitudes, agency and vision in the way cities are documented and imagined. Cities and Photography explores the relationship between people and the city, visualized in photographs. It provides a visually focused examination of the city and urbanism for a range of different disciplines: across the social sciences and humanities, photography and fine art. This text offers different perspectives from which to view social, political and cultural ideas about the city and urbanism, through both verbal discussion and photographic representation. It provides introductions to theoretical conceptions of the city that are useful to photographers addressing urban issues, as well as discussing themes that have preoccupied photographers and informed cultural issues central to a discussion of city. This text interprets the city as a spatial network that we inhabit on different conceptual, psychological and physical levels, and gives emphasis to how people operate within, relate to, and activate the city via construction, habitation and disruption. Cities and Photography aims to demonstrate the potential of photography as a contributor to commentary and analytical frameworks: what does photography as a medium provide for a vision of ‘city’ and what can photographs tell us about cities, histories, attitudes and ideas? This introductory text is richly illustrated with case studies and over 50 photographs, summarizing complex theory and analysis with application to specific examples. Emphasis is given to international, contemporary photographic projects to provide provide focus for the discussion of theoretical conceptions of the city through the analysis of photographic interpretation and commentary. This text will be of great appeal to those interested in Photography, Urban Studies and Human Geography. Cover 1 Cities and Photography 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Boxes 8 Photographs and Acknowledgements 9 General introduction 15 Part 1: Contexts 24 1. Cities and urbanism 26 2. Photography concepts 52 3. Photography and/in/of the city 80 Part 2: The documented city 112 4. Walking the city 114 5. Social and political practices 146 Part 3: The metaphorical city 176 6. Postmodern megalopolis 178 7. City and subject 206 8. Psycho-geographies and the city 235 Selected bibliography 272 Index 284 'Cities and Photography' discusses the relationship between people and the city, visualised in photographs. It explores how photographs display attitudes, agency and vision in the way a city is documented and imagined. It provides a visually focused examination of the city and urbanism for a range of different disciplines Contexts introduction chapter Cities and urbanism Photography concepts Photography and/in/of the city The documented city Walking the city Social and political practices The metaphorical city Postmodern megalopolis City and subject Pyschogeographies and the city.