ABSTRACT
Since the 19th century, construction site photographs have been a means of documenting the building process. However, the way in which the photographs are created, how they are viewed and how they are used, creates a context that influences what can be seen in the image. The question of how this evolved after 1945 still remains largely open until today. By means of a case study into the photo archive of the Antwerp firm Van Laere (1938), this article attempts to convey how the context and evolution of the company influenced the creation of their visual archive but also the stories within individual images. The history of the company is interrogated through a series of interviews and analysis of their photographic collection. The paper aims to demonstrate that this context should certainly be taken into account in any further use of photographs as source material.
