A darkroom with a view

How We Are, a massive new exhibition of a century and a half of photography at Tate Britain, reveals an intimate portrait of Britain, writes Tom Allbeson.

TOM ALLBESON

The development of photography is a strange combination of technological innovation and aesthetic refinement. The mental image of Hill and Adamson, the Scottish early pioneers of the medium, mixing potassium iodide and silver nitrate while musing on artistic concerns such as composition, is incongruous to say the least.

How We Are, a massive new exhibition at Tate Britain containing more than 500 images from 100 photographers, does not feature any work by these gentlemen scientists, but similar tensions run through the selections that have made it on to the gallery walls. The pictures of Glasgow by Thomas Annan are a prime example.

Commissioned after a parliamentary ruling in 1866 to level the city centre and make way for the impressive Victorian architecture that remains today, these images are a record of the packed and dismal streets that have been erased. Lighting conditions were so poor in these slums that Annan managed only to produce around 30 successful pictures in the three years he worked to record the area. The images he captured - such as No 118 High Street (1868) - clearly show the technical difficulties of working in these confined spaces, but they also show Annan's desire to convey something of the life of the area and the hope for its future.

More than 20 people are captured in this picture. Squeezed between the walls, they are looking towards a street lamp. It is a light at the end of the tunnel as they wait for the better life they have been promised. Like the inhabitants threading their way through these cramped streets, Annan negotiated the demands imposed by his documentary commission and his own urge to express in these shots the greater significance of the moment.

Similarly, Alfred Buckham's Aerial View of Edinburgh (c1920s) navigates between the practical applications of photography and the greater depths it can reveal. Buckham was head of aerial reconnaissance for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Using the tools of his trade, he made images of astonishing beauty. This photograph (made possible by innovations driven by the war effort) is still amazing, even in the age of budget airlines. Normal perspective has been reversed: the castle appears delicate and small, the clouds voluminous and heavy. And the biplane is suspended between the two like a toy.

The aesthetic possibilities of military advances are also picked up in the 21st century by Simon Norfolk. Included in the exhibition is an image from his Military Landscapes series (2006), portraying the Perisher submarine exercise area between Ayrshire and Arran.

Norfolk attempts to capture what he calls the "military sublime" - a phrase equally applicable to Buckham. In a large-scale photograph, which shows an eerie calm on the lifeless Firth of Clyde, you can understand exactly the sense of awe and terror he is aiming at. "These photographs," Norfolk explains, "form chapters in a larger project attempting to understand how war, and the need to fight war, has formed our world: how so many of the spaces we occupy, the technologies we use, and the ways we understand ourselves, are created by military conflict."

Arranged chronologically, the images in this exhibition promise an unparalleled portrait of the UK from the invention of photography in the mid-1800s to the present. Work by early photographers such as Annan and Julia Margaret Cameron sit alongside contemporary photographs by Norfolk and Martin Parr. The selection also includes some interesting work not often displayed, like the Sassoon family photo album or Canadian Homer Syke's images of bizarre British traditions and customs (including an image of the Burry Man of South Queensferry).

This is a rich topic providing a fascinating insight into recent history, as well as an engaging survey of the uses of photography. But the exhibition presents something more compelling than this. It traces that curious relationship between the technical nature of the process and its capacity to produce something with resonance far greater than its origins suggest. In doing so it reveals the captivating power of people who, using the simple chemical process that makes photography possible, can capture a vision of Britain.