New topographics was a term coined 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. These photographs generally represent the replacement of nature with man-made.
Quick Response
When editing my landscape photographs, I used Lightroom to convert my images into black and white. I also increased the contrast in order to create a more dramatic landscape. Furthermore, by adjusting the curves and levels of the photographs, I made sure they were not either under or over exposed.
I believe that this landscape photograph is my best image as it displays clear leading lines, created by the plough lines in the field, that direct the viewer towards the focal point, being the pointed hill in the centre. In addition, I think that this image also shows similarities with Fay Godwin’s rural landscape work, due to its moody atmosphere and dramatic, cloudy sky.
Over the next two weeks you will be looking at producing blog posts and responding photographically to:
URBAN LANDSCAPES
Ed Ruscha, “Every Building On The Sunset Strip”
The artist Ed Ruscha is famous for his paintings and prints but is also known for his series of photographic books based on typologies, among them Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Some Los Angeles Apartments, and Thirtyfour Parking Lots. Ruscha employs the deadpan style found in many photographic topologies. The book shown above is a 24 foot long accordion fold booklet that documents 1 1/2 miles of the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.
Here’s another topology for you to look at by Ólafur Elíasson :
Thom and Beth Atkinson< Missing Buildings, 2016
https://www.thomatkinson.com/missing-buildings
The New Topographics
The beginning of the death of “The American Dream”
New Topographics inspired by the likes of Albert Renger Patszch and the notion of The New Objectivity
Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. 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.
The New Topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers including those artists who became known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
BLOG POST: Photoshoot / Practical Responses…
Look at how the New Topographics approach has inspired landscape photography and the way we document our surroundings / the way we are using and transforming the land.
You should look at photographers such as…
Research a selection of these photographers and respond with…
Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, 1975, chromogenic color print
Analysis and discussion… starting points and key features of The New Topographics
Remember to use this
Follow this 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :
Your vantage point affects the angles, composition, and narrative of a photograph. It is an integral part of the decision-making process when taking a photograph.
We often spend more time considering camera settings and lighting, than exploring viewpoints. A picture taken from a unique vantage point makes us think about the subject in a different way. Perspectives from high or low angles add emotion to the photograph.
Eye-level vantage points provide a feeling of directness and honesty. Changing your vantage point can include or exclude part of the photo’s story.
As you look through your viewfinder, ask yourself some questions:
TRY LOOKING UP, LOOKING DOWN, AT AN ANGLE, FROM A DISTANCE, A WORMS EYE VIEW ETC.
Photo shoot
Plan
Where:
St Catherine
When:
For me it’s better to take pictures in the morning because it’s pretty quiet
Why:
What I’m looking to do is to create some images but influence by Fay Godwin style .
Contact sheets :
Edited:
Final selection :
This my final selection , I choose those two images because I think that they have a pretty resembling style to Fay Godwin style and it’s preety much what I was looking for. I like the images in black and white because there’s a lot of shadows that appears and that we can’t really see on colour.
Rural landscapes are photos with the soul purpose of showcasing nature and our natural surroundings. When photographers capture a rural essence, they usually romanticize the area shown to project their own sense of place they felt then in that location and reflect what they saw through the final photo. To the viewer, this gives them a sense of inclusion as the photographer is sharing their experience with them.
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature rejecting the precepts of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality.
Fay Godwin, born 1931 in Berlin, Germany, first became interested in photography in the mid-1960s as a result of taking pictures of her young children. Alongside early portrait work, she developed a sophisticated landscape practice, often collaborating closely with writers to produce in depth surveys of particular rural topics or regions. Her photography has sometimes been linked to a tradition of romantic representations of the British landscape, in the manner of Bill Brandt or Edwin Smith. But, as a socialist and active environmentalist, Godwin makes the land in her photographs reveal traces of its history, through mankind’s occupation and and intervention.
This black and white photograph taken by Fay Godwin shows a rural setting containing a mix of fields, paths and a reservoir. The main focus of Godwin’s work was to show off the countryside which was continuously becoming privatized and hidden from the public eye, to show the hidden beauties of England. I feel as this photo is the perfect representation of how we view a countryside. In the foreground of this photo, we see path leading down to the fields, found between rough and harsh stretches of both long and short grass. To me, this is a good contrast to the smooth hills and fields seen in the mid ground as it projects two different textures of the plain that can be easily interpreted by viewers.
At first view, my eye was drawn to the smooth and clean hill found in the middle ground leading to a white patch, after more research i found that the title of the photo is ‘Path and Reservoir’, this has now made the white space clear that is it a body of water within the fields.
The fact that this photo is in black and white shows me that the colours found in a countryside fall second to all the textures seen and emphasizes the contrast to a greater scale. Also, in the photo i see that Godwin has covered the whole of Ansel Adam’s scale, going from 0 being black through to 10 being white, displaying different shades.
Considering the time frame when this photo was taken, 1977, I reckon that this photo was processed in a darkroom and replicated. When taking the photo, i seems as if Godwin stood at a high point on the plane to capture as much content as possible. there is a chance that Godwin used a Hasselblad 500C/M camera fitted with a Planar f2.8 50mm lens or a Leica M6 camera fitted with a Summicron f2 35mm lens. As both of these cameras were used to produce some of the images included in the exhibition.
i carried out my photo shoots at different locations around the island, exploring my options of both landscape and coastal environments. I timed my photoshoots to correlate with different weathers and time frames to give myself different atmospheres to work with.
This selection of images contain photos which I believe are the best at showing how simplistic and beautiful nature is and aiming to romanticise a different view of nature without extreme weathers or elements. I edited all my photos to black and white to exaggerate the contrasts between highlights and shadows, giving a calm and collected moment for atmosphere. I think this was successful as it has made the photos more subjected as there are two main ways to view the images, those being the stillness and calmness of the plains or the harshness and depth of the textures within the photos. Whilst editing I considered Ansel’s zones, trying to include all aspects of the scale. As I was taking the photos, I positioned myself with intentions of capturing landscapes without including as many modern buildings/alterations in the photo. However in some photos, catching a small section of a building or one being in sight very far away was unavoidable when I was trying to photograph an eye grabbing photo in terms of composition.
What is Landscape Photography ?
Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Landscape photographs typically capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes.
Examples of Landscape Photography :
Shoots Plan:
Where: St Ouen, Plemont, forests
What: Sunset, Horizons, Cliff faces
When: Sunny Day, Sunset, Sunrise, Windy Days
Inspiration: Minor White
https://collections.artsmia.org/search/artist:%22Minor%20White%22
Minor White was an American photographer known for his meticulous black-and-white prints of landscapes, architecture, and men. White’s interest in Zen philosophy and mysticism permeated both his subject matter and formal technique.
“At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us,” -Minor White.
Contact Sheet 1 :
Shoot 1: High Contrast Black and white
For these images I went into a forest that had very little light coming in through the trees. This allowed my images, when put into black and white, to have a high contrast with the shadows being very dark and the lighter areas then look a lot brighter than they were.
I think these images look better in White’s style. This is because the high clarity allows the viewer to see the details in the bark. The chips in the bark could emphasise the fact that as you get older you get scars but nothing changes who you truly are.
Coloured Images
I took this images at an angle looking up at the trees to emphasise the height of them. I also went into Lightroom and edited them in there. For the first image, I used a cool temperature filter to highlight the fact that the forest was dark and cold. The dark green/blue hue emphasises this further. The ground looks bare and there are no leaves on the trees till you get to a certain height. This could mean that nothing survives without light. We need to focus on the positives in life otherwise life will be boring and pointless.
The second image however has very warm tones. There is also a path in the centre of the image leading upwards. These leading lines can be used as a metaphor of life showing that what has been down must go back up .
Contact Sheet 2:
Shoot 2- Coastal Images (final images)
Black and White Coastal
Before and after editing:
I edited this image in light room and focused on making the texture of the rocks at the front of the image more prominent. I did this by increasing the contrast and reducing the ‘whites’ in the image. I also reduced the shadows in the image to further enhance all the cracks and crevices of the rocks. Doing this also enhanced the cliff face in the background. The sun has shone on half of the cliff face which highlights the rough texture of the rocky cliff face. The other half of the rock however is covered by shade which makes it look black and gloomy. This could be an interpretation of the dangers of walking near a rocky cliff face and that the dark shades of the rock represents death and sadness.
The coloured image has a very positive and summery feel to it. This allows the viewer to see that the image was taken on a clear day. However the black and white image has a more sinister mood. The darkness of the ocean and clouds could make the viewer feel intimidated and think that the beach was a dangerous place to be. Whereas in the coloured image it looks like the beach in the image is a lovely place with a gorgeous blue sea to swim in. The black and white image makes the sea look rough because you can see that in the distance, as the sea hit the rocks under the water, the white foam that is created. This makes the ocean look choppier than it actually is.
Image Comparison:
I chose this image for a comparison because it was similar to White’s. My image however focuses more on the landscape as a whole, whereas White’s image focuses on the rock and tide.
This is shown through the contrast in his image. White often used infrared lenses which allowed the image to look very sharp in terms of shadow and light. You can tell that he used an infrared lens for this image; if you look at the ocean and the foam it created due to the impact of it hitting the rock and the shoreline you can see the individual bubbles that had formed.
I used Lightroom to edit my image. I increased the contrast to make the highlights that were on the rocks stand out more. I also increased the clarity to make the whole image sharper and more refined.
To improve this image, I would crop it to make it more condensed like Minor White’s images and focus more on the rocks and the patterns they have.
Over the whole of the Rural Landscape task, I believe these 3 images were my most successful. Image 1 is of a wall down at Ouasne, which I found very interesting- It looks as though it has just been cut directly in half, creating a 2d effect. The composition of the photograph is very level, as though somebody placed straight vertical lines across it as well as an almost gradient of light to dark from the bottom up. There are many small details within the photograph that make it more interesting than just that, for example the tree stump with roots that looks unusual. Originally, the image was very bright and saturated as this natural wall is actually orange, it was a good image that way and was very lively but to create the man reference to Wynn’s work, I changed it to black and white along with image 2 and 3. However I really loved the way it turned out. As mentioned in previous blogs, it really made the different tones pop out and created contrast within the image. Image 2 is a close up of a pile of rocks on the coast. It has a diagonal composition, and almost straight cut, with a few trees in the centre. I like the contrast of the rocks and trees; the trees being dark in tone and the rocks and sky being quite light. There are also a range of textures with the smooth sky and the rough rocks and trees. Image 3 was an instant final selection. I like the illusion of a fish eye view, whereas it was actually just the natural shape of the small hill- this links to Wynn’s idea of perception and how what I saw in his image was actually something completely different (although my image does not go to that extent). There are also some very light spots as well as dark spots, creating good contrast within the image.
Romanticism, originating at the end of the 18th century, was a movement of European descent consisting of artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual forms. This new form of expression saw artists conveying their personal interests and feelings towards nature, allowing them to break free from the classical restraint, that had so long confined artists in their work. The pioneers in British romanticism are said to be artists J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, introducing the movement to the country through their dramatic landscapes. This ‘Age of Romanticism’ came shortly after what is known as ‘the age of enlightenment’, which valued the use of reason to bring about the improvement of humanity. This resulted in the many literary, philosophical, scientific and law creations and discoveries, including the revolutions of France and America.
Romanticism in photography is said to have originated as a saturation of the movement, due to this new media being invented towards the end of this dramatic expression, therefore resulting in a larger focus on the mundane rather than the sublime. However the original intent of the romanticism movement immerged again through the work of photographers such as Ansel Adams, Roger Fenton and Fay Godwin, with the display of the immense beauty of nature.
Plan
Where – This photo-shoot is going to take place at the end of St. Ouens Bay , L’etacq.
What – I will be photographing different areas of the sea and rock to get some different angles and dynamic photos. The wind and swell will be strong so this will create lots of white water which forms powerful waves.
When – This photo-shoot will be taking place on the weekend with the weather being an overcast of rain and heavy clouds making it seem darker than usual in the afternoon.
Why – I have decided eta do this photo- shoot to capture different parts of the sea at different angles and to also have a bunch of photos to play around with on Lightroom to edit and create an interesting piece.
camera settings will be as such – 800 ISO , Exposure – Between – 100/200
Contact Sheets
Editing
For my editing I firstly made the image straight and cropped out any sky and trimmed the bottom to create long rectangular photos. Next I decided to turn them into black and white and played around with the contrast, highlights and shadows. Finally I changed the levels of how much white and black was allowed into the image. Black being the rock and white being the foam from the sea. Setting these final 6 photos together and laying them out to seem as close as one image cut into 6, I came out with this…
Final Outcome
Evaluation
This type of photography is more seascape than landscape. I find this type of photography interesting as when capturing different angles of a rough sea smashing against rocks form great powerful images that can relate to romanticism. Editing these images to be black and white in my opinion give the photos more depth when put in a group as above. Cutting out the surroundings and trimming the images to fit as a long rectangle make these photos effective as you wouldn’t be able to identify where the images was taken. The surrounds are not to be seen, therefore more depth of thought goes in to the images when analysing them. If I was to do this photo-shoot again I would change the scenery a bit as capture images from completely different beaches and also go in different weather conditions to compare my images from now.
For this photoshoot the lighting and weather allowed me to capture the subtle tones that Luigi Ghirri famously represents in his own work, however my work has a much darker tonal palette. Ghirri also takes many of his photos at the beach, so I felt like using him as an artist reference ties in well with the topic of coastal landscapes.
I believe the images highlighted in green are best photos because they capture the simple contrast of colours, shapes and the use of leading lines that is common in the works of Ghirri. To edit these photos I could use Lightroom or Photoshop in order to increase brightness and decrease contrast to make the tones lighter and more similar to those of Luigi Ghirri.
The photos highlighted in red are my least successful images because the horizon isn’t captured at a straight angle and in general I don’t think they represent Ghirri’s work as accurately.
I used photoshop to edit these photographs in order to make them more similar to the work of Luigi Ghirri. I did this by increasing the brightness and adding blue-toned hues to give the image the pastel aesthetic that Ghirri achieves.
Firstly, I used the colour balance adjustment to add the blue tones and make the grey sky slightly more vibrant.
I then added a blue-green hue to the image to further accentuate the blue tones. I increased the saturation to highlight the pastel colours and increased the lightness to make the colours lighter.
Finally, I added a cyan colour filter to make the blue tones even more prominent.