Hailed by the poet and architectural historian Sir John Betjeman as "a genius at photography", Edwin Smith (1912-1971) was one of Britain's foremost photographers. At the time of his death, he was widely regarded as without peer in his sensitive renditions of historic architecture and his empathetic evocations of place. The recurrent themes of Smith's work - a concern for the fragility of the environment; an acute appreciation of the need to combat cultural homogenization by safeguarding regional diversity; and a conviction that architecture should be rooted in time and place - are as pressing today as when Smith first framed them in his elegant compositions." "This book is the first major study of Smith's work for over twenty years, and the first book to put his work into its photographic and cultural context. Featuring many rarely seen images and drawing on previously unpublished correspondence, Evocations of Place will appeal to anyone interested in architecture, landscape, photography and cultural history generally