The New Topographics

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.

Many of these photographers gained inspiration from parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses. In 1975, the end of the Vietnam war, America had a huge economic inflation problem leading to soldiers returning home to America and there was not anywhere for them to live, resulting in suburban housing being built. Photographers like  Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, took inspiration from the man-made houses in front of the rural mountains.

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. Later on the exhibition became a movement, to show the damage and the negative impacts the human species was creating on the world. The new topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers.

In the photo above, I separated the image into three. in the bottom third you can see the urban, modified land with tons of houses. and in the middle third you can see some of the original untouched landscape which shows how these houses were not always there. Furthermore, in the top third, shows some moody clouds which set the tone and emotion behind the photo.

photo shoot one:

When? Midday/ dusk

Where?

photoshoot two:

when? midday/ dusk

where?

Exposure bracketing is a technique where, instead of taking a single photo, you take three (or more) that are all exposed slightly differently; normally one is correctly exposed, one slightly underexposed, and one slightly overexposed. It’s in quite a few situations, so let’s look at how it works.

In Class Examples

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Above are six photos that we took in the the ‘Street’ a school, the first two photos are over exposed

As soon as you take your first shot, adjust the exposure compensation, shutter speed or ISO by around one stop and take a second shot. Adjust the shutter speed or ISO two stops in the other direction and take a third.

Before and After Editing

Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer. Who is most known for his timeless photograph of the ‘Face of Half Dome’. His extensive knowledge of cameras and the science behind how they worked allowed him to visualise the image before he had even taken it.

Ansel became frustrated when an image would not get developed how he visualized it, therefore, he created the ‘zone system’. This was originally made to determine his vision for tones within a picture it also links to the exposure settings of a camera. The 11 zones in Ansel Adams’ system were defined to represent the gradation of all the different tonal values you would see in a black and white print, with zone 5 being middle grey, zone 0 being pure black (with no detail), and zone 10 being pure white (with no detail).  Theoretically, each zone represents one f-stop in exposure. 

Face Of Half Dome

The story behind the Face Of Half Dome:

On April 10th 1927, Ansel and his four friends set out to go on a hike to photograph this soon to be iconic cliff edge. However, this was not his fist time going to the Half Dome. Ansel had spent four of his teenage summers in the area, and the first time that he photographed it he was fourteen years old.

In order to achieve the dark background Ansel was experimenting with different coloured filters where he was using a yellow filter, however, almost immediately switched to a dark red filer which darkened the sky and added depth into the shadows of the mountain.

He has also created the perfect exposure. The Time element is about shutter speeds which is the duration of time the shutter is open for, therefore how long the film, plate or sensor is exposed to light.

photo literacy:

Ansel Adams is considered to be one of the most famous landscape photographers of all time, above is a photo taken which is a perfect example to use with his zone theory, the trees would be a 0 and the river would be a 0.

Shooting in daylight, into the light shown by the silhouette of the trees most likely used a slow shutter in order to gain a sharp clear image.

John Constable was born in Suffolk, England, and is mainly known for revolutionising the genre of landscape paintings and Romanticism and the Sublime.

John was never financially stable throughout his life, even though now his paintings are considered some of the most popular and expensive in British art. He attended the Royal Academy of arts at the age of 52, then further went on to sell most of his art work in Franc where his art was most embraced.

Most of John Constables paintings were based around where he live/grew up.

The Hay Wain

The painting above depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex.

Towards the left of the painting, there is a house which was owned by a Constable’s father and was rented out by a farmer, which was said to have been born in the cottage and only spent a total of four days away from it.

Constable’s father owned 90 acres of land surrounding this painting, this further shows how John was privileged and from a upper class family. Yet his paintings include people from a working class background which seem to be working hard to gain an income

The painting above is a tow-horse being ferried across the river in Flatford, just below the Lock, at a point where the towpath switches banks.

what is it?

Rural= in, relating to, or characteristic of the countryside rather than the town.

Rural landscape photography refers to “photography in the countryside” and covers the rural environment. While rural landscapes often contain architecture – much the same as urban landscapes – rural landscape photography is more about capturing the life and elements found in the countryside.

It is also the diverse portion of the nation’s land area that is not densely populated or intensively developed, and not set aside for preservation in a natural state.

Rural Landscape Photographers

Fay Godwin:

Fay Godwin was a British photographer known for her black-and-white landscapes of the British countryside and coast.

Fay Godwin 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.

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I used photoshop to blend the bottom two images into one photo (at the top). Firstly I edited the two photos in Adobe Light room then exported the two images into photoshop, layered them, and then blended them together.

The photos above are images that I am going to try reference while doing my landscape homework. Many of these images above are by Faye Godwin. I like how they are very simple however, the weather/clouds create a really dramatic effect.