The concept of 'embodied knowledge' is based on knowing a place from the personal bodily movements through the city over time (pre-reflective, bodily existence), as opposed to a theoretical knowledge---knowing a place through film, books, paintings and photographs. We are in the world through our body, and insofar as we perceive the world with our body.
It is a situated knowing from being in the world. Hence the importance of the lived body. Our awareness doesn’t emerge from a disembodied mind floating somewhere beyond physical reality, but is part of an active relationship between us and the world. The ‘I’ that knows is tangled with what is known--we are “nested” in contexts that include relationships with people as well as with objects in the world. These bodily movements and practices build up memories of being in the same location at different times.
If we relate this to large format photography, then we have the notion of an integrated set of skills poised and ready to anticipate and incorporate a world prior to the application of concepts and the formation of thoughts and judgments. This kind of embodied poise or readiness is “habit,” or preconceptual capacities or dispositions that sketch out in advance and so structure our awareness of objects.
Habitus is the outcome of the sedimentation of past experiences, shaping the photographer's perceptions and actions of the present and future and thereby moulding their artistic practices.