In the wake of Glasgow’s transformation in the nineteenth-century into an industrial powerhouse — the "Second City of the Empire" — a substantial part of the old town of Adam Smith degenerated into an overcrowded and disease-ridden slum. The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, Thomas Annan’s photographic record of this central section of the city prior to its demolition in accordance with the City of Glasgow Improvements Act of 1866, is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. Annan’s achievement as a photographer of paintings, portraits and landscapes is less widely known. Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer’s work. The book opens with a brief account of the immediate context of Annan’s career as a photographer: the astonishing florescence of photography in Victorian Scotland. Successive chapters deal with each of the main fields of his activity, touching along the way on issues such as the nineteenth-century debate over the status of photography — a mechanical practice or an artistic one? — and the still ongoing controversies surrounding the documentary photograph in particular. While the text itself is intended for the general reader, extensive endnotes amplify particular themes and offer guidance to readers interested in pursuing them further.

Thomas Annan (1829–1887) was the preeminent photographer of Glasgow in the mid-nineteenth century, a period when the rise in industry and population dramatically altered the landscape of the “second city” of the British Empire. Often working in conjunction with civic projects, Annan produced numerous series that underscore the transformation of the city and its environs, though he remains best known for one series in particular: a group of enigmatic photographs of central Glasgow's narrow alleys, or closes, on the verge of demolition. These haunting images, made between 1868 and 1871 and regarded as precursors of the documentary tradition in photography, represent the notion of progress that underpins much of Annan’s oeuvre. Annan’s publication history serves as the organizing principle for this book, which considers both the breadth of his body of work as well as the multiple formats in which his photographs appeared and circulated. Featured here are seven examples— including private albums and commercial books—that focus on subjects as varied as the city’s streets and closes, the Loch Katrine aqueduct, Glasgow College, the cathedral, and the country estates of the landed gentry, highlighting Annan’s extensive engagement with the city of Glasgow. Plates from each of these works are faithfully reproduced in full color, and an introductory essay by the leading authority on Annan surveys the life and career of this widely influential photographer.

Eschewing the limiting idea that nineteenth-century architecture photography merely reflects functionality, the objective of this collection is to reflect the aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural concerns of the time. The essays hold appeal for social and cultural historians, as well as those with an interest in the fields of art history, urban geography, history of travel and tourism. Nineteenth-century photographers captured what could be seen and what they wanted to be seen. Their images informed of exploration, progress, heritage, and destruction. Architecture was a staple subject for the first generation of photographers as it patiently tolerated the long exposures of the early processes. During its formative decades photography responded to evolutionary cultural forces of market and artistic production. Photographs of architecture reflected a specific political or social context modulated through individual points of view. For this reason, the examination of each photographic image as a primary visual document and an aesthetic object rather than a technical milestone on a chronological trajectory affords a richer multi-faceted approach to the extensive and complex corpus of photographs taken by photographers all over the world. This project acknowledges the importance of technique in the early decades of photography but focuses on the thematic content of the material. It places the photography of architecture in an international context under the contemporary critical lens sharpened by theoretical and cultural examinations of the topic.

The Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography is the first comprehensive encyclopedia of world photography up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It sets out to be the standard, definitive reference work on the subject for years to come. Its coverage is global – an important ‘first’ in that authorities from all over the world have contributed their expertise and scholarship towards making this a truly comprehensive publication. The Encyclopedia presents new and ground-breaking research alongside accounts of the major established figures in the nineteenth century arena. Coverage includes all the key people, processes, equipment, movements, styles, debates and groupings which helped photography develop from being ‘a solution in search of a problem’ when first invented, to the essential communication tool, creative medium, and recorder of everyday life which it had become by the dawn of the twentieth century. The sheer breadth of coverage in the 1200 essays makes the Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography an essential reference source for academics, students, researchers and libraries worldwide.

First authoritative, comprehensive study of photography from a purely aesthetic point of view, spanning its history from daguerreotypes to modern photo-reportage. 240 superb photographs. First inexpensive paperback edition.

This is the first book to provide a full and coherent introduction to the photography of Victorian Scotland. There are many books which deal with particular elements and individual photographers, which show the interest in the subject, but no book draws everything together to provide an understanding of the multi-faceted nature of photography and the inter-relationship with other activities in the society of the time. This authoritative introduction, building upon these other publications, will provide a wide-ranging appreciation of early Scottish photography and in particular that Scottish photography was in the vanguard of many international trends. The material has been structured and the topics organised, with appropriate illustrations, as both a readable narrative and a foundation text for the subject.