Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Ever since its invention, photography has enjoyed a close and mutually stimulating relationship with architecture - an association underlined by one description of photography as "building with light". So well established is this link that photography is now regarded as the easiest and most reliable means of making architecture and its ideas accessible to a wider public. Our first, sometimes our only, impression of a building often comes from a photograph, and the skilled photographer can help us to see even the most familiar structures with a fresh eye. This book offers a lively exploration of the development of architectural photography and some of its key themes. From the earliest examples of the genre in the nineteenth century to today's digital revolution, Robert Elwall skilfully focuses on the changing aesthetic of the medium worldwide. Included are such topics as the early influence of architectural drawing; the growth of specialist photographic firms documenting the nineteenth-century building boom; the influence of photography on both architectural practice and history; the invention of half-tone reproduction; the role of photography in the spread of Modernism; the impact of colour photography during the 1970s and 1980s; and the increasing use of computers to shape a new direction. Authoritatively written by a world-renowned expert and illustrated with arresting images from collections throughout the world, this study is essential reading for anyone interested in architecture, photography and the history of their special relationship. Book jacket.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 8)
• Chapter 1 The Triumph of the Apparatus 1839-1860 (p. 11)
• Chapter 2 Volumes of Hints, Suggestions and Realities 1860-1895 (p. 49)
• Chapter 3 Printer's Ink and Pictorialism 1880-1925 (p. 85)
• Chapter 4 The New Vision 1925-1945 (p. 119)
• Chapter 5 Photography Ascendant 1945-1975 (p. 155)
• Chapter 6 Colour and Computers 1975-Present (p. 193)
• Notes (p. 231)
• Select Bibliography (p. 233)
• Acknowledgements and Photographic Credits (p. 235)
• Index (p. 236)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Combining a historical perspective of photography and architecture, this book beautifully illustrates the importance that light and shadow make in photography and in the graphic design of architecture. Elwall (photographs curator, Royal Inst. of British Architects, London) chronicles the history of photography from the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839 to its use to record architectural detail. The volume includes such chapters as "The Triumph of the Apparatus 1839-1860," "Volumes of Hints," and "Suggestions and Realities 1860-1895" and contains over 100 color and black-and-white photographs spanning some 150 years. Since the book will appeal to both photography and architecture buffs, it is recommended for academic libraries, special libraries connected with photography and architecture, and large public libraries.-Sandy Knowles, Henderson Cty. P.L., NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.