Photography as instrument of urban observation: a convergent issue in research on cities

Abstract

The value of the image’s range as an object of investigative technical support has been widely questioned and, currently, still encounters resistance.

Photography, however, as document and witness, has been resisting for more than a century, and it is product and instrument of urbanization and the expansion and growth of cities, being however, essentially urban, according as it appears at the same time that modern cities born, being several the records of photographers who have focused on them, and significant the works of architects and urbanists who use the imaging support as an instrument of urban life investigation.

Taking as an final example with a new focus the popular settlement Campo Alegre, located between the municipalities of Nova Iguaçú and Queimados, in the metropolitan region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, this paper provides an overview of the importance of the use of photography as a methodological instrument of research and has as objective to relate the importance of the researcher’s use of photography as a source of investigation and scientific publicizing during the observation and recording of happenings in urban life: it’s stories, it’s meanings and memories, in the attempt to decode it’s symbols and reveal the contradictions contained within it’s reality.