Failed Images approaches photography in terms of its divergence from the reality it would claim to show. How does the photograph transform that which exists before the camera? A variety of factors influence the way photography constructs its images--not only the technical features of the medium, but also the conventions that have sprung up within it, governing the field from the most formal portraits to the quickest snapshots.

Combining cultural theory with many case studies, Failed Images offers a different approach to photography, celebrating the medium's range of possible modes of image-making. In this book the photographic image is explored through what might seem to be its outliers--photographic practices that resist the presumed dominant approaches to the medium. These counter-practices include staged photography, blurred photography, archival photography, and under- and overexposed photography.