A new method is presented which determines the aerosol light absorption from the simultaneous measurement of radiation passing through and scattered back from a particle-loaded fibre filter. The measurement is performed at three detection angles to resolve the influence of light-scattering aerosol components on the angular distribution of the back scattered radiation. The fraction of light absorbed by the deposited aerosol (absorbance ABS) is obtained from a radiative transfer scheme. The method response normalised to the mass concentration of black carbon to test aerosols with mass fractions of the light-absorbing component between 1.2% and 100% (aerosol single scattering albedo 1.0-0.28) varied by > 300% for a transmission measurement only, but by < 50% for multi-angle absorption photometry. The compensation of light-scattering effects in filter-based aerosol absorption measurements is considerably improved. The detection limit is 3.5 x 10(-4) absorbance units. The uncertainty of the absorbance is +/-12%. The evaluation of the method using field data yielded an average mass specific absorption coefficient of 9.1-10.7 m(2) g(-1) at lambda = 0.55 mum for atmospheric black carbon in urban air. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.