Photography against the Olympic spectacle

This article sets the official images of the transformation of East London for the 2012 Olympics against two independent documentary photography projects, Alessandra Chilá's Olympian Visions and Chris Dorley-Brown's Decisive Moments. The first section analyses the Olympic Delivery Authority's computer-generated images as acts of political imagination and in terms of the production of consensus. The work of Chilá and Dorley-Brown is then presented as a counter-representation of the changes in the area, and at the same time a critical reflection on the constructed nature of the documentary image. Through the use of post-production techniques and text–image combinations, these photographers have abandoned the idea of a transparent access to reality, while remaining committed to a broader notion of realism.