The New topographics was a term used by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher. Pitheads 1974.

Many of the photographers associated with new topographics were inspired by man-made features, selecting subject matter such as. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses.  An exhibition at the International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York featuring these photographers also revealed the growing unease about how the natural landscape was being eroded by industrial development leaving human footprints.