Social Visualities

This book challenges the image-centred orthodoxy in photography studies, shifting attention to the tactile, sonic and material interactions that unfold in darkrooms, commercial labs and manufacturing sites through which photographs emerge. Through a combination of artistic research, sensory ethnography and experimental aesthetics, it examines sites such as Bayeux London and the labs of Polaroid and Fujifilm to reveal the hidden infrastructures and embodied labour that shape photographic production. Filling a critical gap in photographic scholarship, this study invites readers to reframe photography as a multisensory, event-based practice.