Positions

Positions addresses the ascent of architectural photography as a discipline, and the changing role of the architectural photographer. Once merely charged with providing a purely documentary representation of a building, the architectural photographer now offers a personal interpretation of the work of the architect, urban planner or landscape designer--what the editors of this volume term "commissioned interpretive photography," which raises the question of what "working on assignment" might mean. The common factor that unites the photographers presented here--Theo Baart, Bas Princen, Ralph Kamena, Jannes Linders, Jeroen Musch and Hans Werlemann--is that each of them has brought a highly personal perspective to bear upon their approach to their commissions, and that each of their oeuvres has had a direct impact on contemporary architecture and urban planning. Positions examines the photographer's emancipation from documentary constraint to creative agency. A "selective historiography" provides an overview of the development of architectural photography on commission, and further texts describe methods of collaboration between photographer and architect.