Robert Adams (born May 8th, 1937) is an American photographer who focused on the changing landscape of the American west. His work first because popularised after he participated in the New Topographics exhibition (1975), and his book the New West (1974).

During his childhood Robert Adams liked Adams often accompanied his father on walks and hikes through the woods on Sunday afternoons. He also enjoyed playing baseball in open fields and working with his father on carpentry projects. He was an active Boy Scout, and was also active with the Methodist church that his family attended. He enjoyed being outdoors and that likely sparked his care for the natural environment, and how a lot of it is getting destroyed.

he first anticipated he would be in a career of teaching, but due to his passion for nature and how he saw it in it, he when down a path of photography. He bought a 35-mm reflex camera, taught himself the fundamentals of photography, and began making pictures infused with a love for the geography of his home state.

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.

Photo Analysis

The photograph pictures a two-story house whose half-timber framing appears decorative rather than structural. It was taken under bright noon sunlight, the house’s shadow barely extends into its grassless yard. The house is almost covering the vast organic mountain range from behind, which is appearing much more durable that the uninspired, geometric house in the suburb. The composition creates a deadpan effect, added with the vast emptiness of the background and the lack of life. The lack of life creates a feeling of isolation, almost as a metaphor to how we are slowly isolating are self’s to the natural environment.

Other:

This is my New Topographics virtual gallery. I chose these images because they represent The New Topographics style the best. And with the image in the middle, the buildings range from very old to extremely modern, which suggests that the surroundings have been built up over time.

Beginning in the 1970s, a group of photographers including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Nickolas Nixon were associated with the 1975 exhibition New Topographic; this was Photographs of man- altered landscapes. The exhibition displayed their work, it showed how they focused on different kind of landscapes rather than those found naturally or at national parks. They showed landscape photography in a new way, focusing on urban landscape areas around America post-war, such as suburban areas like freeways, gas stations, or industrial parks. This was a new reflection to the suburban world around them, as they began to explore different and new ways of capturing landscapes.

The New Topographic show how photographers have responded to man’s impact on the land, they began to photograph urban landscapes with human activity, rather than just natural landscapes.

This new style suggested a ‘cool detachment’ from the more perfect and pristine landscapes of the natural/ man-made world. The New Topographic showed new scenes of everyday American Landscape.