Edited by Michael Mack, with contributions from Gerda Breuer, Neil Leach, Rolf Sachsse, Hubertus von Amelunxen

It is as though human beings - in an age increasingly dominated by photography - have taken on the attributes of the camera... 'We now see the world in terms of the "snapshot", and according to the mechanism of the camera itself.' Neil Leach

German photography has led the world in the reassessment of our relationship to the urban and man-made environment. Themes such as the way we move through space, and our alienation from the world around us, are explored by artists including Bernd & Hilla Becher, Gosbert Adler, Laurenz Berges, Mona Breede, Johannes Bruns, Susanne Brügger, Michael Danner, Thomas Demand, Christine Erhard, Andreas Gursky, Matthias Hoch, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, Heiner Schilling, Matthias Schmidt, Michael Schmidt, Heidi Specker, Petra Wunderlich and Ulrich Wüst. The artists' portfolios are supported by a series of essays that set the work in a theoretical and historical context.