This is the first introductory textbook to examine key debates in photographic theory and place them in their social and political contexts. Written especially for students in further and higher education, it provides a coherent introduction to the nature of photographic seeing. Individual chapters cover key debates and theorists; the documentary role of the camera; the popular and personal with particular attention to the family album; advertising and commodity culture; photography as fine art and photography and digital imaging. Designed to direct students of photography to key reading and assist the understanding of key terms, a list of resources which includes archives and galleries and a comprehensive bibliography. It is lavishly illustrated with over 80 illustrations. Among these are key nineteenth-century photographers Camille Silvy and Peter Henry Emerson; documentary photographers Frank Sutcliffe and Dorothea Lange; images from Victorian and family albums; early product advertising form Kodak and contemporary fashion photography from Benetton; computer generated images and a NASA satellite image of earth; images from famous artists such as Alexander Rodchenko, Bill Brandt and Lee Miller.