Lewis Baltz a visual artist and photographer who was born in 1945 in California. After studying at San Francisco Art Institute he worked as freelance photographer and taught photography to students.His work has been included in major exhibitions, including New Topographic at the George Eastman House in 1975 and Mirrors and Windows at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978. Since the mid 1980’s he has been based in Europe and traveling a lot taking photos everywhere he goes.
Lewis Baltz produces photographs in series focused on a particular theme or geographic area and usually publishes them in the form of a book. His work, like that of others associated with the New Topographic, challenges the nineteenth century tradition of western landscape photography represented by people like Ansel Adams by presenting a less innocent view of the landscape.
Technical: from the photography I can tell that natural lighting was used and it was probably a cloudy day, i can tell this from the bright but soft light and the absence of sharp shadows. A wide angle or regular lens would have been used to take this photo and to help get this much of the building in the frame. The image has a large depth of field which makes everything at a distance from the lens sharply in focus. I think a short exposure would have been used to get such a sharp image and to capture the dark tones.
Visual: It is a black and white Photograph which has a high contrast with an equal amount of light and dark areas. The image is separated by different shades of grey in geometric shapes, these are split up using texture from the empty flower bed in the centre of the image. the bottom of the image has more dark shades whilst the top half contrasts with this with bright almost white shades. the corner of the building is centred to the middle of the image with lines going out towards the outer edges of the image
Contextual: towards the end of the 1960s the rapid development of the American postwar decades began to take a toll on the environment. In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency announced a massive photo documentary project, called DOCUMERICA, which recorded the adverse effects of modern life on the environment. More than 100 photographers were hired not only to document specific issues, but to capture images showing how we interacted with the environment. By 1974, more than 80,000 photographs had been produced.
Conceptual: his work focused on searching for beauty in desolation and destruction, his images show the architecture of the human landscape, officers, factories, and car parks. the idea of his photos are is to show the control, power and influence which human have on nature and nature consequently has on us. In this image we can see a large building with simple characteristics. the flower bed in the image was made by human in intention for life to live in amongst urban areas however as we can see this image there is no sign of life which could lead us to believe that humans power over nature is weak and that we can not control it.
Read more http://www.leegallery.com/lewis-baltz/photography/