ABSTRACT
Since the invention of the photographic medium, the relationship between photography and art has been problematic in many ways, and it continues to be. Documentation of sites has a long history in landscape photography, but the shift of emphasis away from pure aesthetics towards the incorporation of contextual embedded histories really took off in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The often-discussed William Jenkins New Topographics exhibition at the George Eastman House in 1975–1976 is frequently viewed as a pivotal moment for research-based documentary projects. The research-based documentary projects surveyed seek to reveal the hidden yet charged histories of places. The chapter provides a number of scholars and practitioners to explore the borders of the medium, such as moving versus still images, documentary versus staged photography, the single image and the series, as well as sculptural and tactile dimensions, research-driven methodology and psychological borderlines.
