What is the meaning to 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, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

What was the New Topographics in relation to?

The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

What was it inspired by?

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. Parking lots, suburban housing and warehouses were all depicted with a beautiful stark austerity, almost in the way early photographers documented the natural landscape. 

How have photographers responded to mans impact on land?

Photography has also been instrumental in shaping public opinion, as it can evoke emotions and influence how people see and understand the world. Photographs can sway public opinion and impact the course of events, whether through photojournalism, advertising, or propaganda. Landscape photographers often capture the effects of human activity on the environment. These images serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of irresponsible actions, such as deforestation, pollution, and climate change.

how have photographers found a sense of beauty in the ugliness of functional land use?

Landscape photography is an immersive journey that allows us to connect with the awe-inspiring beauty of our planet. Through composition, perspective, and the mastery of light, we can capture and unveil Earth’s wonders. Some landscape photographers highly value what they show in their photos as “real”; that there is correlation between what they saw with their own eyes at the moment they got the photo and the final print. It, of course, comes with some problems. Defining what “real” is, is actually rather hard.

What is 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, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

The New Topographics documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. The photographs, stark and documentary, are often devoid of human presence.

Jenkins described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion”.

Topographics in general is a technique in which a scene, usually a landscape, is photographed as if it were being surveyed from afar.

On the one hand, New Topographics represented a radical shift by redefining the subject of landscape photography as the built environment. To comprehend the significance of this, it helps to consider the type of imagery that previously dominated the genre in the United States. 

Beginning in the 1920s, Ansel Adams cultivated an approach to landscape photography that posited nature as separate from human presence. Consistent with earlier American landscape painting, Adams photographed scenery in a manner intended to provoke feelings of awe and pleasure in the viewer. He used vantage points that emphasized the towering scale of mountain peaks, and embraced a wide tonal range from black to white to record texture and dramatic effects of light and weather.

Ansel Adams, “The Tetons—Snake River,” Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942

Adams wanted his pictures’ viewers to feel as uplifted as he had when looking at the scenery in person. His heroic, timeless photographs contributed to the cause of conservationism – the environmental approach that seeks to preserve exceptional landscapes and protect them from human intervention.

Despite The New Topographics being an interesting new genre for many photographers to experiment with, it was actually a controversial technique in which many photographers do not like the look of it. This may be because the photos include more of the man-made world rather than the natural world, which many can argue is more “boring”.

“I don’t like them—they’re dull and flat. There’s no people, no involvement, nothing.”

However, many photographers do enjoy photographing the man-made world as it is an opportunity for the audiences to realize how much humans rely on it. The world we live in today would not be remotely similar if we did not have all of the up-to-date buildings and technology, which is useful to everyone, every day.

“At first it’s stark nothing, but then you look at it, and it’s just about the way things are.” 

“I don’t like to think there are ugly streets in America, but when it’s shown to you—without beautification—maybe it tells you how much more we need here.”

The stark, beautifully printed images of the mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, 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.

Robert Adams, The New West

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, 26 gasoline stations, some Los Angeles apartments, and 34 parking lots. Ruscha employs the deadpan style found in many photographic topologies.

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.

When should you use exposure bracketing?

Exposure bracketing is where you take a sequence of photographs with different exposure levels, and then blend them together to create a photograph with a much higher dynamic range. It gives you all the details you will ever need in your photographs so you can create the exact image you had in mind.

if the scene has a high level of contrast, or you’re just really not sure that your exposure settings are even in the right ballpark, adding to the number of bracketed shots or setting a higher exposure compensation value increases the exposure range the camera captures for a wider range to choose, therefore it should be used every time your trying to achieve this certain style of photography.

What is HDR in image?

In photography, HDR stands for high dynamic range. Dynamic range is simply the range of the lightest tones to the darkest tones within a photo. Put another way it’s a measure of the light intensities from the highlights to the shadows.

What is the difference between exposure bracketing and HDR?

AEB stands for Auto-Exposure Bracketing. It is the method used to obtain HDR photos. It consists in taking several photos of the same scene at different exposure levels. HDR, High Dynamic Range, is the technique that superimposes the different photos to create a new, final photo.

What is the meaning of 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, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

What is Topographics?
Technique in which a scene—usually a landscape—is photographed as if it were being surveyed from afar, practiced most famously by the 1970s ‘New Topographics’ photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon, and Bernd and Hilla Becher.

What was the new topographics a reaction to?
Their stark, beautifully printed images of this mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Post-war America struggled with

• Inflation and labor 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

A turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signalled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. Pictures of transcendent natural vistas gave way to unromanticised views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance. This restaging of the exhibition includes the work of all 10 photographers from the original show: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and etc.

MOODBOARD

The New Topographics documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. The photographs, stark and documentary, are often devoid of human presence. Jenkins described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion”.

Robert Adams

On the one hand, New Topographics represented a radical shift by redefining the subject of landscape photography as the built (as opposed to the natural) environment. To comprehend the significance of this, it helps to consider the type of imagery that previously dominated the genre in the United States.

An example

Robert Adams

This image is a perfect example as the bottom half of the image is man-made with human activity objects as humans adapt which ultimately adds these subjects to the image. This contrasts to the top half off the image as it contains natural scenery therefore Robert Adam’s had contained both environmental factors. A significant feature about this image are the lines on the houses contrasting with the round/ not straight lines on the mountains showing clear meaning the houses are man-made and perfectly put together however the mountains are not but as humans we prefer the look of environmental features but housing is a necessity. Another interesting factor is the sun shining creating light highlights on the houses but in the distance dark shades with the clouds making light onto the floor which has an eye catching effect.

While visiting the exhibition, people voiced a range of reactions:

“I don’t like them—they’re dull and flat. There’s no people, no involvement, nothing.”

“At first it’s stark nothing, but then you look at it, and it’s just about the way things are.”

“I don’t like to think there are ugly streets in America, but when it’s shown to you—without beautification—maybe it tells you how much more we need here.” 

TYPOLOGY – the study and interpretation of types that became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher

Landscape/Typology. The German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher, who began working together in 1959 and married in 1961, are best known for their “typologies”—grids of black-and-white photographs of variant examples of a single type of industrial structure.

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.

To create these works, the artists travelled to large mines and steel mills, and systematically photographed the major structures, such as the winding towers that haul coal and iron ore to the surface and the blast furnaces that transform the ore into metal. The rigorous frontality of the individual images gives them the simplicity of diagrams, while their density of detail offers encyclopaedic richness. At each site the Becher’s also created overall landscape views of the entire plant, which set the structures in their context and show how they relate to each other. The typologies emulate the clarity of an engineer’s drawing, while the landscapes evoke the experience of a particular place. The exhibition presents these two formats together; because they lie at the polar extremes of photographic description, each underscores the creative potential of the other.

A landscape typology is a systematic classification of landscape types based on attributes that describe properties of interest, such as land use, scenic properties, or cultural characteristics or history.

EXAMPLE