What is Typology:

Typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency that is mostly based on the environment, subjects and photographic process. It was created by Bernd and Hilla Becher in Germany, 1959. When they started taking photos of buildings that had gone to ruin and had been abandoned.

Examples of Typology:

As you can see, they appear to have a deadpan style, with the camera facing the subject head on in black and white. With nothing else in the frame, it’s just the building. Sometimes other sides of the building were also taken to show more perspectives.

Bernd and Hilla Becher:

Bernd and Hilla Becher were a couple who formed a duo in photography. And also, as said earlier, were the ones who started Typology:

They described their work to be “buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style” and their motive was to “capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes”.

Their work inspired other photographers and was passed down to photographers who were from the next generation. Photographers like Ed Ruscha, Thomas Ruff and Gillian Wearing were some of these photographers who went out and took photos in relation to the Becher’s work.

Ed Ruscha:

“Every Building on the Sunset Strip”

Ed Ruscha was famous for his paintings and prints but was also well known for his work on Typology in photography. He used the deadpan style very well and wanted to capture the same theme the Bechers did. He is well known for his album named “Every Building on the Sunset Strip” which he made in Hollywood, 1966:

This 25ft folded album contained photographic views he took in the 1 and a half mile road stretch of sunset. Every two pages would capture both sides of the road to create a sort of panographic type of view.

“Twenty-six Gasoline Stations”

Ed Ruscha made his first book in 1963 and called it “Twenty-six Gasoline Stations”. As implied by the title, it contained 26 pictures of gas stations. The book is also considered to be the first modern artists book ever made and it became a precursor to modern artist book culture:

As you can see, they also fit the deadpan style with no particularly interesting features. Ed Ruscha himself said:

“I had this vision that I was being a great reporter when I did the gas stations. I drove back to Oklahoma all the time, five or six times a year. And I felt there was so much wasteland between L.A. and Oklahoma City that somebody had to bring in the news to the city…I think it’s one of the best ways of just laying down facts of what is out there. I didn’t want to be allegorical or mystical or anything like that.”

So his motive was to intentionally make the photos boring to show people that the area had exactly that level of excitement in the actual place at that time.

“Twenty-six Abandoned Gasoline Stations”

A photographer named Jeffrey Brouws made a replica of Ed Ruscha’s work in 2013, taking 26 photos of gas stations but instead being abandoned this time. the idea was to show how times have changed and that many gas stations were beginning to be abandoned, whether this was due to newer technology being made or rises in cost in order to maintain businesses wasn’t confirmed. But it also captures the same deadpan approach that Ruscha also had:

Typology originated from Bernd and Hilla Becher, who started documenting German Industrial architecture as a way of capturing what might be gone soon.

The main aim of typology was to capture a single thing. to show the thing as the thing itself, nothing else behind it. For example these images where created to show the buildings themselves, without any other outstanding things featured. Even in these images they waited for the clouds in the background to match the image as if there where using a huge white background.

Its a surprise that a docile, simple, and minimalistic image can be praised so much. Although it isn’t a surprise once you understand what’s behind the pictures. Bernd and Hilla Becher would take images of areas like coal mines, deserted places, and overall bland, and what looks to be depressing places. This also showed people the horrible conditions people live and work in, and how they have been left to rot, and even un-recognised by people. It sheds a light on something that doesn’t shed light itself.

topography aims to be consistent with what it images. Its not topography if the same concept isn’t shown throughout a project.

For example in the first image there is a consistency in the number 4, and in the other there is a consistency in face masks, but they all have different aspects given to them, weather that be colour shape size or pattern.

A photographic typology is a single photograph or more, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject.

The term ‘Typology’ was used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.

THE BECHER’S – Typologies of industrial architecture

Hilla Becher was a German conceptual photographer. Becher was well known for her industrial photographs, or typologies, with her collaborator and husband, Bernd Becher. For forty years, they photographed disappearing industrial architecture around Europe and North America and then won the Erasmus Prize in 2002 and Hasselblad Award in 2004.

They focus on photographing industrial structures such as water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories and never included people. Their work was in a documentary style as their images were always taken in black and white.

They exhibited their work in typologies, grouping of several photographs of the same type of structures. They’re also well known for presenting their images in grid formations. 

Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha is an artist known for his paintings and prints but is also recognised for his photographic books on typologies.

Jeff Brouws

Twentynine Palms – is a photographic book by Jeff Brouws is a photo book that contains a selection of images of vintage roadside signs advertising fortune tellers and palm readers.

Contact sheet:

Final Edits:

When I took my images for this topic, I used the flash for some of them. In these images you can see the raindrops are lit up and frozen in motion in front of the camera. The reason that you can see this only in these photos is firstly because when the flash is engaged, the camera automatically makes the shutter speed as short as possible. This is to avoid the camera from taking in too much light from the flash and overexposing the image. This makes it possible to see the raindrops as individual shapes as opposed to blurred entities because a faster shutter speed eliminates motion blurs. Secondly, the light obviously illuminates the raindrops before the camera.

Below is a comparison between one image taken with flash and the same image taken without it. These were taken seconds apart and so this demonstrates the effect of the flash on the appearance of the light.

I like these images because I think they all respond well to the brief of New Topographics, as they all have a very muted and desolate tone. I also think that there is a lot of alignment between my images and those of the most famous artists of the movement.

A photographic typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject.

The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Bernd and Hilla Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’.

Stoic and detached, each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world. They made sure to take the photos when the light was soft, showing a clear difference between the sky and building. This meant they waited hours or even days to photograph a single picture, avoiding the weather they didn’t want (especially bright, harsh sunlight).

Typologies in Landscape Photography

The couple photographed a couple of buildings with a similar structure and design, taking multiple pictures of different sides of each building. They then put the photos into a 3×7 grid, creating an effective look by comparing each image. The colourless, dull sky plays a major role in the photo, allowing the building to be clearly separated from the background.

The couple photographed the same structure in different places, taking the photos from the same distance and perspective, centreing the structure in the frame and tightly cropping the surrounding buildings to create a pattern of repetition. They put their photos into a 3×3 grid, creating a sense of perfect symmetry. Once again, each photo was taken on a dull, bleak day, allowing us to focus on every aspect of the structure without being distracted by the background/ without the light changing the look of it.

Bauman took 100 photos of 100 different abandoned homes and displayed them all in a 8×14 grid. The grid causes the different tones and shades to contrast and clash, creating an interesting final piece. Each photo is taken at a face on angle, presenting the front of the house in a square image.