Photography and reality are inextricably linked but, whether one is being photographed, making a photograph, or looking at a photograph, photography is an act of the imagination. In nine original essays, art historians and cultural theorists break with photographic tradition to explore the crucial role of the imagination in photography from 19th-century studio portraiture to 21st-century digital innovations.

Martha Langford is research chair and director of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University and co-editor of Photogenic Montreal: Activisms and Archives in a Post-Industrial City.