This essay seeks to examine the position of photography in contemporary art or, more specifically, the way photography now hovers between tableau and the ‘document’ Three methodological levels are considered: first, a co-textual reading of select images by Jeff Wall and Allan Sekula in relation to their titles; secondly, an examination of their various treatment of pictorial elements, remnants of a long-standing artistic tradition; thirdly, at the level of the meta-text, the same images are confronted with a much broader contextual relationship. Here, the differences between two modes of working in contemporary photography — singular tableau and (pseudo-) documentary montage — become clear. A historical flashback traces this current photographic paragone back to 16th Century Southern Netherlandish art. Finally, the author raises a question pertaining to a fourth, practical level: that of the art market.