Here is a mood board I created on how I see Anthropocene through images. This demonstrates what I think are the biggest contributors, effects and components of this topic. I included explosions, ice, fossils, buildings, humans helping out, waste dump sites and oil spills.
The word Anthropocene describes a geological period of time, where human activity has actively began to create a negative impact on the environment.
Different causes of Anthropocene consist of:
Agriculture
Urbanisation
Deforestation
Pollution
Anthropocene has been huge contributor to the development of Earth that an organisation named The International Commission on Stratigraphy is in need of identifying the ‘Golden Spike’ which would be a direct point in fossil records where the transition from Holocene from the Anthropocene can be located. It is said that this direct shift will have to be so significant that it would be detectable in rock layers thousands or millions of years into the future.
Some believe that Anthropocene began in the 1800s, which was a huge period of time for human activity to affect the planet. These large-scale productions that took place, were due to the making/growth of mines, factories and mills. However, some also say that it began earlier, during the period where farming and agriculture dominated the land. In the 1950’s, nuclear weapons cast radioactive elements across Earth. The debris and remains from these weapons, made its way and was absorbed into rocks, trees and the atmosphere. This absorbance would be a direct indicator of when the ‘Golden Spike’ took place.
The long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns of climate change results in a difference in that snow and rainfall patterns, it also affects average temperatures increase and extreme weather events such as heat waves or floods to occur more frequently.
Biodiversity.
Biological Diversity is a word to describe the the variety of life on Earth, this range varies from humans to small organisms. People on Earth need biodiversity to live, this means that all different elements in the large natural system, enables everyone to survive. Nature also plays an important part as components such as fresh air, clean water and animals and plants around us for breathing and food. However, throughout Earth, biodiversity is struggling, extinction and deforestation, are resulting in the world facing a dangerous future and even things like species becoming extinct can be fatal. Biodiversity loss is predominately down to human activity, and interrupting of the balance of biodiversity with the take over of farms, factories, roads, cities, buildings and homes are replacing natural habitats.
Anthropocene definition according to The United Nations of Photography- The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.
Mitch Epstein.
Mitch Epstein is an American photographer who approaches his subjects with a subtle and contemplative approach to photography which questions what it means to be American. He has been photographing since the 70s and 80s.
American Power (2003–2007)
investigate specific places. Epstein’s project American Power (2003–2007), critically documents society’s relationship to the industrial landscape. “I would say the culture of the built environment is always something that has engaged my attention.”
I fid Mitch Epstein’s work particularly interesting because he photographs meaningful pictures which captivate the audience and displays the world within the industrial landscape and how the world is changing. This is very meaningful and shows a true perspective on the world and how it change and continues to change due to human’s contribution to the world.
Through out the shoot I was altering with the settings to make sure the photos came out clear and and that the exposure was right.
I started with 294 and dwindled it down to 86 decent photos.
From here I picked 13 that I really liked and created black and white copies. I also created copies with different editing styles and experimented a bit to see what style I like.
This photo of the fish shop by la Collette is one of my favourite I have taken. and I made a black and white copy as well.
‘The New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape’ was an exhibition at the George Eastman museum in Rochester, New York. This exhibition was created by William Jenkins in 1975 and included the work of various photographers such as:
Frank Gohlke
Robert Adams
John Schott
Lewis Baltz
Stephen Shore
Joe Deal
Nicholas Nixon
Bernd and Hilla Becher
Henry Wessel
The word ‘topographic’ refers to the arrangement of physical features in an area, therefore, The New Topographics is a way of stating that the arrangement of physical features have been changed. In addition, The New Topographics was a reaction to the Post-war American Landscape, where the world was becoming increasingly suburbanised and landscape photography was becoming progressively romanticised and idealised. Moreover, the purpose of this exhibition was to highlight the effects of human intervention on the environment and, as a result, this exhibition significantly contributed to conservationism, a movement which aims to conserve and protect natural resources and wildlife, as it made people realise what the world was becoming.
Key Features of The New Topographics
The New Topographics inspired the beginning of the genre Urban Landscape and these images often included features such as petrol stations, industrial parks, trailer homes, industrial buildings and houses. These images brought attention to landscapes and areas which people see everyday but never think twice about in an attempt to protect natural landscapes from human intervention. The industrial features in these images are often paired with natural landscapes in the background to create contrast between natural and man-made.
Case Study of New Topographics Photographer
Robert Adams – The New West
Robert Adams, a photographer who was part of The New Topographics, published a book in 1974 named ‘The New West’. This was a book containing landscapes along the Colorado Front Range (Mountain Range) and it is regarded as a classic book of photography. Adams created this book as a way of documenting the development of freeways, mobile homes, low-rise business buildings and signs in the suburbs, rather than romanticising it. The images displayed in this book are all mostly of middle-grey scale which is a common feature amongst Adams’ work.
Bernd and Hilla Becher where a married couple who began collaborating in photography together in 1959, 2 years after meeting each other. After 2 years of collaborating together, they got married and they travelled around Europe and North America together photographing industrial architecture. Their images often displayed industrial structures such as water towers, coal bunkers, gas tanks and factories and they exhibited their work as sets of typologies:
Additionally, Hilla Becher stated:
‘By placing several cooling towers side by side something happened, something like tonal music; you don’t see what makes the objects different until you bring them together, so subtle are their differences.‘
‘For me, photography is by its very nature free of ideology. Photography with ideology falls to pieces.‘
‘We photographed water towers and furnaces because they are honest. They are functional, and they reflect what they do – that is what we liked. A person always is what s/he wants to be, never what s/he is. Even an animals usually plays a role in front of the camera.‘
These quotes prove that the purpose of their photographs was to display the beauty, similarity and complexity of various functional, man-made structures.
Lewis Baltz is another photographer who was involved in The New Topographics movement. He was born in Newport Beach, California and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he received a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in 1969 and at Claremont Graduate School, where he received an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in 1971. Baltz worked as a freelance photographer and taught at various institutions in California, as well as some others across the globe. During his career, Baltz produced numerous photo books and has had his work featured in a variety of Museums, including Tate Modern, Metropolitan Museum of Art and many in the United States.
Photographs by Lewis Baltz:
Baltz’ work, featured in The New Topographics, challenged 19th century western landscape photography by presenting a more realistic view of the landscape, displaying the effects of suburban development on the topography, rather than picturesque landscapes. His images were all displayed in monochrome and featured man-made structures with straight edges, such as doorways and warehouses. These features, in most of his photographs, are accompanied by natural features/vegetation such as trees, grass and rocks.
This is one of the most well known images by Robert Adams, titled Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado. It was taken in 1973 and it is best known for splitting the Colorado landscape into two, presenting both a sublime mountain-scape and the harsh reality of mobile homes impacting the landscape. Additionally, this image displays a contrast between the man-made, smooth edges of the mobile homes and the natural form of the mountain, conflicting between humans and nature. This photograph shows that the Colorado landscape and wilderness is not quite what you would envision after seeing the work of Ansel Adams. Rather, it is a site of interaction between humans and the inhuman, an environment scattered with human development rather than an untouched natural environment.
Aaron Siskind was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. Born in New York City, Aaron Siskind graduated from the City College of New York in 1926 and taught high school English until he became interested in photography in 1930. In 1933 he joined the Film and Photo League in New York, a group of documentary photographers devoted to improving social conditions in contemporary society through their pictures.
While involved with the League, Siskind made some of his most successful and well-known documentary photographs, including those for The Harlem Document. Siskind’s photographs have been widely exhibited and he won many awards for his photography, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Distinguished Photography Award from the Friends of Photography. Siskind was a photography instructor at Chicago’s Institute of Design and served as head of the department there from 1961 to 1971. Siskind’s abstract photographs from the late 1940s and early 1950s were a major force in the development of avant-garde art in America. In rejecting the third dimension, this work belied the notion that photography was tied exclusively to representation. He created pictures by closing in on his subjects, framing out distracting elements to enhance the emotional sense or allusive aspect he found compelling. Later he focused on surfaces to further condense the energies of splashed paint, graffiti marks and crumbling materials.
“In photography, it is not the subject that matters, but how it is captured.”
Mind map:
Textures
Patterns
Natural formations
Abstract photography
Social realism
Image analysis:
Siskind commonly edited his images in black and white, as it allows the outcomes to appear distraction free – busy, colour saturated pictures can confuse the eye and sometimes there’s simply too much going on. Black and white images on the other hand can seem refreshingly simple and it’s often easier to see and interpret the main focus of the picture. However this is not always the case, as sometimes the viewer can not interpret the main focus on an image when it is in black and white, because it is difficult for us to assume the colours in the image, which could potentially take away the mood in the photo. Additionally, Siskind focused on abstract photography, where he captured different patterns and textures through materials. This relates to my photoshoot as I took photos of different textures close up which allows me to assume how old the materials are and how long they have been there. For example, rust on objects immediately tells the viewer that the object is old, and perhaps hasn’t been taken care of properly or been cleaned enough. Old photographs can help shape our understanding of culture, history, and the identity of the people who appear in them.
Examples of my work compared to Aaron Siskind:
Comparing my work to Siskind:
I believe my work is very similar to Aaron Siskind’s as we both have used the deadpan approach on our images so it is easy for the viewer to interpret our message through it, as well as making it easy to see the details throughout and seeing a clear display of the subject in the photograph. We have both also experimented with using black and white in our editing process, in order to emphasise the specific characteristics in each one, without being distracted through the different colours. However a difference between me and Siskind is I tested my photos with lighter filters and tones when editing, this is because I did not want any of my photographs to appear dull or boring to the viewer. Hence, I kept a few of my outcomes in colour but enhanced the editing so the tones and shades are enhanced. Whereas, Siskind often edits his photos to become darker, which displays a clear divergence of the different textures, successfully adding a dramatic effect.
The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth until now. It affects Earth’s geology, landscape, limnology, ecosystems and climate.
The Anthropocene is a geological unit of time, continually describing the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity began to have a significant impact until now. It takes into account the effects on the Earth’s geology, landscape, climate, limnology and ecosystems. This geologic time scale is split into hierarchical series of smaller lengths of time, descending in length of time: eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. These units of time are composed through the classification of the Earth’s rock layers and the fossils found within them. Through this, scientists can examine the correlation between the certain organism’s characteristics of the certain parts of the geologic record – stratigraphy.
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human (‘anthropo’) and new (‘cene’), but its definition is controversial. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer. The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old while humans have been here for a much smaller scale, yet irreversible influence has taken place on biodiversity and nature, fundamentally altering the Earth’s physical, chemical and biological code. In the last 60 years, the Great Acceleration has began. This is a term used for the increasing rate at which human impacts are unfolding at an unprecedented scale and speed, causing the globe to deteriorate and become more modified, spiralling downwards. Being the most influential species of the planet, human behaviour has created a snowball effect of significant impacts not only for other ecosystems or species but ourselves too. Just a few of these are:
Carbon dioxide emissions
Global warming
Ocean acidification
Habitat destruction
Extinction
Widescale natural resource extraction
An increase in extremeness and frequency of severe weather conditions e.g earthquakes, tornados and storms
In simple terms, it is how human activity impacts the earth.
Human-caused climate change has indeed dominated global trends: The last eight years have been the eight hottest on record. A sure-to-be-record-hot 2023 and a potentially even hotter 2024 would stretch that streak to a decade. For example, in 2014 the global population was 7.3 billion however it is now 8.1 billion. If civilisation doesn’t move towards more sustainable lifestyles such as the refusal of consistently burning fossil fuels, even more dramatic changes could occur which could be incredibly life-threatening for the human species too.
MOODBOARD
When did the era of Anthropocene begin?
The early Anthropocene hypothesis posits that the Anthropocene era, as some scientists call the most recent period in the Earth’s history when the activities of the human race first began to have a significant global impact on the Earth’s climate and ecosystems, did not begin in the eighteenth century with advent of coal-burning factories and power plants of the industrial era. Evidence suggests that the beginning of the Anthropocene dates to 8,000 years ago, triggered by intense farming activities of our early agrarian ancestors. It was at that time that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations stopped following the periodic pattern of rises and falls that had characterized their past long-term behaviour, a pattern which is explained by natural variations in the Earth’s orbit.
Photography within the Anthropocene
Collectively, these artists offer compelling visual imagery necessary for picturing the Anthropocene: Arial views of beautiful but toxic sites, collages that incorporate archival photographs to counter colonial narratives, depictions of urbanism on an unimaginable scale, and imagined yet precarious futures. Which ultimately help document and investigate the substantial impact human actions have had on our planet.
The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.
It touches the very core of our being (post)human—and of the space around us we variously call “the environment” or “the world.” Art in the Anthropocene is vital read for anyone who cares about art, animals, climate, ethics, extinction, justice, plants, poetry and the weather”.
The Anthropocene is mainly characterised by three factors: the technological progress that sped up after the First Industrial Revolution, the explosive growth in population thanks to improvements in food, health and hygiene, and the multiplication of production and consumption.
Yes, ‘Anthropocene’ can be useful to tell the history of life on earth. It can also illustrate the extent to which humans have modified the earth’s systems. It also suggests that we can no longer go back to a ‘pristine’ nature that existed before humans, as cultural critics have long suggested.
What is the goal of the Anthropocene project?
Our notion of nature is now out of date. Humanity forms nature. This is the core premise of the Anthropocene thesis, announcing a paradigm shift in the natural sciences as well as providing new models for culture, politics, and everyday life.
What are the cons of the Anthropocene?
These human actions cause, among other consequences, changes in the water cycle, imbalances and destructions in the marine and terrestrial ecosystems, the increase of extreme meteorological phenomena, the acidification of the oceans or the disappearance of the forests.
Mood board of the Anthropocene project
How fashion and textiles affect the climate
The project sell elephant tusks to avoid people from selling them.
The burning of 10,000 elephant tusks piled into an enormous funeral pyres in Kenya’s National Park in Nairobi is both a devastating and beautiful image to look at — a reaction that photographer Edward Burtynsky intended.
His photographs are part of a multimedia project called Anthropocene that merges film, photography and virtual reality installations to illustrate the imprint humans are collectively leaving on the planet.
“We want to communicate out there with people. We want them to look at these things, to try to ask questions about these landscapes,” he told The Current‘s Anna Maria Tremonti.
“If you represent them in … an unsightly light or whatever, they don’t resonate. They don’t make us wonder about this place.”
Fashion is another large factor of the human impact on the environment such as wool as it leaves the largest carbon foot print. Wool is much higher in greenhouse gas emissions than many other fabrics. Sheep farming emits high volumes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and also drives carbon-emitting deforestation. A recent study found that the carbon footprint for 1 kg of recycled wool is 0.63 kg CO2 eq, while virgin wool has an impact of 10.4 kg CO2 eq. This means that the carbon footprint of recycled wool is approximately 16.51 times less than that of virgin wool, making it a solid option for a low-impact alternative.
A wool-knit garment emits 27 times more GHG–equivalent emissions than a cotton-knit garment. One sheep can produce about 30 litres of methane each day. Emissions originate from three main categories of processes: enteric fermentation, manure, and feed.
My photoshoot within Anthropocene
Contact sheet-
Why was this my chosen factor for my photoshoot?
Increased ocean water levels during storms are almost certain to result in more frequent coastal inundation, higher wave run-up levels, higher water levels in lakes and estuaries and more flooding in coastal rivers. Rising sea levels, saline intrusion and coastal erosion are likely to damage coastal ecosystems. Climate changes, such as more frequent and intense rain events, can increase erosion and result in greater amounts of sediment washing into rivers, lakes and streams. More frequent and intense rain events, can increase sediment loading from storm water runoff. Climate change threatens coastal areas, which are already stressed by human activity, pollution, invasive species, and storms. Sea level rise could erode and inundate coastal ecosystems and eliminate wetlands. Warmer and more acidic oceans are likely to disrupt coastal and marine ecosystems.
Why does it link to the Anthropocene?
This links as it is the cause of cliff erosion but however is still very simply beautiful. This causes a contrast as some of Anthropocene’s images are very pleasant and appealing to the eye as it is too show the viewers what earth could look like if us as humans execute beneficial movements to it. This creates different ways in warning the viewers of the impact humans have. Whereas my photoshoot is showing a negative thing such as cliff erosion due to human activity but is also very appealing and not disturbing to the eye. I kept them simple to make it realistic as I personally believe it is more significant and appealing to viewers. I think this is a good idea as it does both factors such e.g negative and positive view points. It is also things you do not think on a day to day basis however when you view it in depth you begin to understand the effects on the earth.
Continued through AI
Original image-
Edited image through AI generator-
Link to artist reference –
Michael Marten: Sea Change
Excellent use of diptych and triptych and exploring low vs high tides to see how it changes a landscape scene
Panoramics-
A reason of why I believe this relates to my photoshoot, is that Jersey has one of the most changing tides. The images I took had a clear high tide with the sea matching the sky because of the weather. My image also shows cliff erosion which is due to changing strong tides. Therefore, my image is relating to Anthropocene as it is showing an appealing and pleasant photo with an underlying problem people don’t think about on a daily basis and would not think of the cliff erosion in this photo. It isn’t as straight forward as some famous photographers influenced by the Anthropocene. This could be a beneficial feature as it is showing what the world could look like if human activity began to improve. Meanwhile, showing what we are currently destroying due to climate change and global warming which causes extreme tides.
For example, other photographers –
A similarity within my images and those images is that both of them show significant amount of nature and non-man made elements. A difference is that these images visibly show the issues in society through rubbish. Where as my issue is a lot more subtle and simple.
The element of still obtaining natural features is too notably signify the destruction to part humans still desire. This is to emphasise what we are doing and to attempt to spread awareness and change.
This is evident in
Zed Nelson:The Anthropocene Illusion In just a few decades, we humans have altered our world. Our planet is crossing a geological boundary: from the Holocene into the Anthropocene. Humans have left the countryside for the city but the desire for contact with nature remains. So, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature. This project examines humankind’s fractured relationship with the natural world, revealing not only a phenomenon of collective self-delusion, but also a craving for a connection to a world we have turned our backs on.
these are photos that I consider that perfectly match the criteria I was given or just one or two things I could have done better and it would be perfect. (rural landscapes, Ansel Adams similarity’s and also some storm damage). these photos are rated 4-5 stars
yellow coloured:
these photos are rated 3 stars and I consider them decent which were a bit off from what I had pictured in my head when I wanted to make these photos.
red coloured:
these images didn’t fit what I wanted at all and can not be salvaged with editing to fit what I wanted for this project at all and is why they are rated 2 stars or just 1.
best outcomes from my photoshoot
even though this photo isn’t much of an Ansel Adams I liked how the image turned out as it has some nice textures and you can see some colours coming through the branches.
this photo captured a nice sunset shows off other things such as hills fields and sea. which is why I picked it.
this photo captured lots of different textures and has some different colours to it throughout which I why I believe its one of the best I took.
The Anthropocene is a geological unit of time, continually describing the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity began to have a significant impact until now. It takes into account the effects on the Earth’s geology, landscape, climate, limnology and ecosystems. This geologic time scale is split into hierarchical series of smaller lengths of time, descending in length of time: eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. These units of time are composed through the classification of the Earth’s rock layers and the fossils found within them. Through this, scientists can examine the correlation between the certain organism’s characteristics of the certain parts of the geologic record – stratigraphy.
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human (‘anthropo’) and new (‘cene’), but its definition is controversial. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer. The Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old while humans have been here for a much smaller scale, yet irreversible influence has taken place on biodiversity and nature, fundamentally altering the Earth’s physical, chemical and biological code. In the last 60 years, the Great Acceleration has began. This is a term used for the increasing rate at which human impacts are unfolding at an unprecedented scale and speed, causing the globe to deteriorate and become more modified, spiralling downwards. Being the most influential species of the planet, human behaviour has created a snowball effect of significant impacts not only for other ecosystems or species but ourselves too. Just a few of these are:
Carbon dioxide emissions,
Global warming,
Ocean acidification,
Habitat destruction,
Extinction,
Widescale natural resource extraction,
An increase in extremeness and frequency of severe weather conditions e.g earthquakes, tornados and storms
A popular theory is that it began at the start of the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, when human activity had a great impact on carbon and methane in Earth’s atmosphere. Others think that the beginning of the Anthropocene should be 1945 as this was when humans tested the first atomic bomb, and then dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This resulted in high amounts of radioactive particles being detected in soil samples globally.
In photography, the scientific research of The Anthropocene is used to document and investigate the substantial impact humans actions have had on the state, dynamic and future of the planet. The burning of trees releases carbon however, when all the other trees have been destroyed for urbanization, there aren’t any nearby to take in this carbon and revert it. As a result, this carbon goes up into the atmosphere and begins to create holes in the ozone layer. This then provides the sun to be able to get its harmful rays in even stronger as the ozone layer acts as protection. This heats up the globe and continues our path down global warming. Alongside this, the burning of fossil fuels releases harmful toxins which contribute to this issue which is a result of the constant redevelopment of areas around the globe. This is a continuous cycle, especially in over-populated cities in countries such as Tokyo, Mumbai and Manila, causing people to begin moving out into the countryside/ more vacant areas further from the city to compensate for this, resulting in further destruction of natural spaces contributing to the growth of climate change. For example, in 2014 the global population was 7.3 billion however it is now 8.1 billion. If civilisation doesn’t move towards more sustainable lifestyles such as the refusal of consistently burning fossil fuels, even more dramatic changes could occur which could be incredibly life-threatening for the human species too, as if it is nature taking its revenge.
The opposing side of The Anthropocene epoch is The Symbiocene, a vision created by scholar Glenn Albrecht.This is an idea to stimulate all humans to create a future where positive Earth emotions will prevail over negative aspects, allowing the period of reintegration between humans and the rest of nature to begin. Some principles of this are:
The full elimination of toxic-to-life substances,
The complete and safe biodegradability of all materials in human use (e.g plastic)
Exploitation of non-polluting forms of safe, renewable energy,
Priority use of the renewable resources of locality and regions,
The idea of all materials becoming biodegradable is one of the many vital aspects at the moment. It is estimated there is now 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic in our oceans at the moment, meaning that there would approximately be 46,000 pieces in every square mile of ocean. The weight of this on land would amount to about 269,000 tonnes. Not only is this incredibly harmful to sea life and even species on land, but once this is ingested by the fish we eat it ends up in our own food.
Nearly one-quarter of the world’s plastic waste is mismanaged or littered. Around 82 million tonnes. This means it’s not stored in secure landfills, recycled or incinerated. One-quarter of that – 19 million tonnes – is leaked to the environment. 13 million tonnes to terrestrial environments, and 6 million tonnes to rivers or coastlines. 1.7 million tonnes of this is then transported to the ocean: 1.4 million tonnes from rivers, and 0.3 million tonnes from coastlines. The rest of the plastic waste that was leaked into aquatic environments accumulated in rivers and lakes.
For my first Landscape Photoshoot, I had the opportunity to visit Thailand and Tenerife. I particularly enjoyed capturing not not just natural elements but also a variety of cultural elements too.
From untouched landscapes to man’s imprint on the landscape –
When I initially thought about taking photos in these destinations, I had imagined that I would be capturing natural landscapes that resembled Romanticism and the Sublime. In a few of my Thailand photos, you can see that the dramatic, untouched landscape does give the impression of a Romanticism Landscape.
However, what became more apparent in these destinations, was man’s impact on the tourist destinations. How buildings and developments now cut through these once idyllic and natural landscapes.
Photoshoot 1 ( Tenerife ) –
Photoshoot 2 ( Thailand ) –
Final edited photos –
(need to find out how to get photos from phone to blog)
New topographics is the photographs of nature and man altered landscapes.
focusing on urban, residential, leisure and industrial landscapes
where did the name come from?
the word originates from “graphia” and “topo”.
what is the idea behind new topographics
New Topographics reinvented both the subject matter of landscape and the kind of response we can have to such pictures: not just awe or uplift, but a sense of responsibility like the romanticism and the sublime. As long as humans continue to develop upon nature, this will remain a vital avenue of contemporary photography.
This style was supposed to show how times were changing because the landscape they were once photographing now has man made buildings which stand in the way of the once nice background, this shows how the photographs would like to shoot straight on “dead pan” with “no emotion” so that they could draw awareness to how much construction and change had happened, this is emphasised in the black and white.
Robert Adams
Robert Adams was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1937
He photographs and has documented scenes of the american west for 4 decades, showing the effects of suburbanization. Adams’s photographs capture the physical traces of human life: a garbage-scatter roadside, a clear-cut forest, a half-built house.
Adams uses photography to express his love for the landscape and to understand how urban and industrial growth have changed it, all the while insisting that beauty in the world has not been entirely eclipsed.
“I think if you placed me almost anywhere and gave me a camera you could return the next day to find me photographing. It helps me, more than anything I know, to find home.”
– ROBERT ADAMS
Adams had been using a large 4-by-5-inch camera, which required a tripod, which produced wonderfully detailed images. But he moved to smaller, more portable formats, often making small, square images in black-and-white that are drenched in sunlight and full of sharp tonal contrast.
his objectivity isnt a lack of emotion, he does it because it keeps the truth of image and makes it look soft.all of Adams’ work is simple, but deceptively so. Since he first came to public attention in the mid-1970s as part of the New Topographics movement, his subject has been the American west: its vastness, its sparse beauty and its ecological fragility.
There is a subtle tonal quality to his pictures – a shading of light and shadow, and various gradations of the same –
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.
What is New Topographics?
New Topographics is a man-altered landscape, that can include man-made buildings, such as homes, towers, car parks etc. as well as natural environments, such as fields, mountains and beaches. The New Topographics can also just be a man-altered landscape with only man-made things.
The New Topographics photography was presented in the same way as natural/ romanticism/ sublime landscapes by many photographers.
The photos of man-altered landscapes presented man and nature coinciding with each other.
When did it become Popular?
A turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signalled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. This became popular post-war, because this was when society returned to normal and many more buildings/ man-made structures were built.
The Beginning of the Death of the American Dream
Many of the photographers associated with The New Topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made.
New Topographics was inspired by the likes of Albert Renger Patszch and the notion of The New Objectivity.
Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all portrayed 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.
What was the New Topographics a reaction to?
The New Topographics was a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around us, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.
Post-war America struggled with:
Inflation and labour unrest. The country’s main economic concern in the immediate post-war years was inflation. …
The baby boom and suburbia. Making up for lost time, millions of returning veterans soon married and started families…
Isolation and splitting of the family unit, pharmaceuticals and mental health problems
Vast distances, road networks and mobility
The New Topographics became popular post-war, because as all the soldiers were returning from war to their families and more babies were being made, this meant that more buildings had to be built in order for everyone to have a home and so society can return back to normal. Buildings that were damaged in the war were also repaired and rebuilt.
The New Topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers including those artists who became known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
Popular New Topographics Photographers
Many of the photographers associated with new topographics including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, were inspired by the man-made, selecting subject matter that was matter-of-fact.
The New Topographics were to have a decisive influence on later photographers including those artists who became known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.
Robert Adams
Robert Adams was an American photographer, who was best known for documenting both the beauty and commercialization of the American West. He was born January 21st 1928 and died March 2nd 1997 at age 69. Adams was born in New Jersey and raised in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. He moved to Southern California in 1956 to attend the University of Redlands. He chose to major in English literature and went on to earn a Ph.D. in that subject at the University of Southern California in 1965.
About his work
When Adams returned to Colorado to begin what he anticipated would be a career in teaching, he was dismayed by the changes he saw in the landscape. He bought a 35-mm camera, taught himself the fundamentals of photography, and began making pictures infused with a love for the geography of his home state.
Robert Adams has photographed the landscape of the American West for more than forty years, particularly in California, Colorado and Oregon. His vision is inspired by his joy in nature’s inherent beauty, yet tempered by his dismay at its exploitation and degradation. Adams uses photography to express his love for the landscape and to understand how urban and industrial growth have changed it, all the while insisting that beauty in the world has not been entirely eclipsed.
Who inspired him?
Adams style of work and his work was inspired by many other well known photographers who came before him. He was especially inspired by:
Timothy O’Sullivan
William Henry Jackson
Carleton Watkins.
Other photographer, who often merged their social concerns with aesthetic ones also inspired Robert Adam’s work, such as:
Lewis Hine
Edward Weston
Dorothea Lange
Ansel Adams
His Books
Robert Adams made many books, such as:
Los Angeles Spring
Why People Photograph
Art Can Help
Turning back
As well as many other books.
However, his most popular book was a photo book called, ‘The New West,’ which included many of his new topographic photographs.
Robert Adams used Ansel Adams zonal System aswell for all his photographs, so he could get good exposure/ contrast in his black and white images. He was expired to create black and white images using the zonal system from Ansel Adams, just like he did.
Critic Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said ‘his subject has been the American west: its vastness, its sparse beauty and its ecological fragility. What he has photographed constantly, in varying shades of grey is what has been lost and what remains’ and that ‘his work’s other great subtext’ is silence.
These are just some photos of Robert Adams work in New Topographics, where he includes images of man-made structure, as well as the natural environment around them, such as the trees, field or mountain.
His most Popular Work
This photo is his most popular work:
This image uses natural daylight lighting as it is taken outside during a cloudy day, so that when it is in black and white the sky is light grey instead of dark grey. The horizon line is positioned straight and above the caravan site. The image is located at a caravan site, where there is also a natural environment (the mountains in distance), as well as a man-made environment (the caravan site). This image has lots of contrast, as it is in black and white, so the image consists of a range of different grey tones. It has lots of different light and dark tones throughout. The layout of this image in split in half. The bottom half 9foreground) consisting of the man-made environment (caravan site) and the top half (background), where the horizon line is consisting of the natural environment (the field and mountain in the distance). These two very different environments are balanced and coincide in harmony.
This relates to the New Topographics, because the image presents how urban environments can coincide with nature and natural environments and how urban environments are growing more and more and can be displayed in the same way as natural landscapes. Roberts Adams took inspiration from Ansel Adams in this photo, as he used his zonal system when taking this photo, so he could get the correct exposure and contrast on his black and white photo. Ansel Adams also produced black and white landscapes. However, Robert Adams landscapes moved further away from the ‘norms’ of landscapes, which is what Ansel Adams focused on.
The concept of this photo is create awareness on how urban structures are growing in size over a vast majority of the world, but how this is not always a bad thing, as it can be just as beautiful and as much of an art as natural landscapes.
My Favourite Photograph
This image is my favourite of Robert Adams work, because it displays how man can live in harmony with the natural environment, without destroying it. This photo presents that, because it is just one church house in the middle of a natural environment and not an image of a big city for example, which ruins and takes over the environment.
This image uses natural daylight lighting as is it taken outside during a cloudy day, so that when it is in black and white the sky is light grey instead of dark grey. This image is in black and white has has contrast of light and dark tones. The main viewpoint is the small church in the middle of the field as it presents the balance and harmony between man kind and the natural environment.
This relates to the New Topographics, because the image presents how urban environments can coincide with nature and natural environments and how urban environments are growing more and more and can be displayed in the same way as natural landscapes. Roberts Adams took inspiration from Ansel Adams in this photo, as he used his zonal system when taking this photo, so he could get the correct exposure and contrast on his black and white photo. Ansel Adams also produced black and white landscapes. However, Robert Adams landscapes moved further away from the ‘norms’ of landscapes, which is what Ansel Adams focused on.
The concept of this photo is create awareness on how urban structures are growing in size over a vast majority of the world, but how this is not always a bad thing, as it can be just as beautiful and as much of an art as natural landscapes. This photo especially expresses how urban environments are not always destructive as there is one small man-made church in a vast natural environment, which is still there and protected.
Lewis Baltz
Lewis “Duke” Baltz was an American visual artist, photographer, and educator. He was an important figure in the New Topographics movement of the late 1970s. He was born September 12th, 1945 in California and died 22nd November, 2014 at age 69, in Paris. He worked as a freelance photographer in California and taught photography at various institutions, including the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California (Riverside and Santa Cruz), Yale, the École Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and the Art Academy of Helsinki.
About His Work
His best known work was monochrome (black and white) photography of suburban landscapes and industrial parks which highlighted his commentary of void within the “American Dream”. Lewis Baltz produces photographs in series focused on a particular theme or geographic area and usually publishes them in book form;
The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California (1975)
Nevada (1978)
Park City (1981)
Sites of Technology (2007)
WORKS (2010)
The Prototype Works (2011)
Candlestick Point (2011).
etc
His work, like that of others associated with the New Topographics, challenges the nineteenth century tradition of western landscape photography. Baltz’s perception of the landscape necessarily reveals the effects of twentieth-century culture and suburban development on the nation’s topography.
Lewis Blatz also created typology photographs, which is photographs that share a high level of consistency and Baltz most commonly took these typologies of large buildings in urban areas.
Who inspired him
Lewis Baltz started photography at age 12 and his early influences were Ed van der Elsken, Wright Morris and Edward Weston and frequented camera shops, especially William R.
His photographs
New Topographics:
Typologies:
His most popular work
This image was one of his most popular images, because his most popular images were his black and white photographs. The lighting used was natural daylight lighting, because the image was taken outside on a cloudy day, so that the sky would be a light grey, instead of a dark grey, like it would be on a sunny day. The image has high levels of contrast and lots of black and white tones (different shades of grey) throughout. The main viewpoint of this image is the old, dirty house.
This relates to the new topographics, because the photograph shows how urban man-made buildings and things can be taken as landscapes in the same way and style as natural landscapes are. This image may also show how houses were early post war, before they had been rebuilt and fixed. Houses would be like this post war due to the destruction of the war and bombings etc. The meaning behind this photo was to show that no matter how ugly, or worn down the man-made things/buildings are they can still be portrayed as beautiful, just like natural landscapes.
My Favourite Photo
This image is my favourite image, because it displays man-made structures coinciding with nature and living in balance and harmony.
This image uses natural daylight lighting, because the image was taken outside on a cloudy day, so that the sky would be a light grey, instead of a dark grey, like it would be on a sunny day. The image has high levels of contrast and lots of black and white tones (different shades of grey) throughout. The layout of this photo had the man-made structure in the background and uses the grass as a leading line towards the man-made structure, which makes me believe that the man-made structure is the viewpoint.
This relates to the New Topographics, because the image presents how urban environments can coincide with nature and natural environments and how urban environments are growing more and more and can be displayed in the same way as natural landscapes.
The concept of this photo is create awareness on how urban structures are growing in size over a vast majority of the world, but how this is not always a bad thing, as it can be just as beautiful and as much of an art as natural landscapes. This photo especially expresses how urban environments are not always destructive as there is one small man-made structure in a vast natural environment, which is still there and protected.
Their Influence
The world of photography underwent a significant transformation with the emergence of Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, two photographers known for injecting purpose and innovation into their work. Renowned for their change from traditional norms (natural landscapes), these artists reshaped the visual expression landscape.
