A Landscape of Wales asks what becomes visible when a landscape is considered as a place to live rather than simply a destination to visit. James Morris photographs Wales through the relationship between its attractive scenery and the marks left by work, settlement and economic change. The project brings questions of identity and belonging into contact with the physical forms of towns and countryside.

Morris moves between places familiar to visitors and the terraces and back streets inhabited by local communities. The publisher describes settlements shaped by industries such as coal, iron, copper and slate, whose original economic purposes have diminished. These environments carry a history that cannot be separated from their present appearance. Regeneration is part of the story, but so are the difficulties of finding a new role after an industry has declined.

Tourism offers a different image of the same country, emphasising pleasure, escape and selected aspects of culture. By considering these views together, the book encourages readers to ask which histories a picturesque representation makes easy to overlook. Its subject is neither scenery alone nor a simple catalogue of industrial remains; it is the tension between how a place is marketed and how it is experienced by those who inhabit it.

Jim Perrin contributes an introduction. Dewi Lewis published this hardback in 2010 with 112 pages and 83 colour photographs, at 338 by 278 millimetres. The volume is relevant to readers interested in landscape photography as a way of investigating social change. Morris’s attention to the built environment provides a route into a discussion of Wales that extends beyond the familiar tourist view.