The New Topographics

What is it?

New topographics a term created by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz for example) whose photos had a particular aesthetic, they were presented formally and they were mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. Photographers liked the simplicity of the New Topographics, photographers such as Bernd and Hilla Becher. For more than 40 years they have been making pictures in a symmetrical and perfect way/manner. From the beginning, their work has been rejected by curators of photography for being ‘inartistic’. It made no difference to the Bechers as they never looked up to art photographers for inspiration. The New Topographic photographer tried to ex[press how that you cannot separate “nature” from humans.This means that no matter what humans create on top of the land or destroy on it, some sort of nature will be surrounding what is destroyed or created.