The term urban landscape, widely used today, does not refer to clearly defined objects. Such a lack of “reference” leads us to question the representations from which one could define this concept. The concept has maintained a privileged relationship with photography, a question we will address in a short history. We will focus then on the southern district of the Val-de-Marne, an area representative of metropolitan outskirts the identity of which is not well defined and examine a series of professional, artistic and pedagogical practices involving the photographic eye. These various attempts to picture the metropolitan territory show how the understanding of the landscape relies on the experience of places as well as specific forms of media. Therefore cultural theories of landscape are confirmed. In addition, interpreting the photographic act leads us to question the privileged relationship between crossing a territory and photography.