what is the new topographics?

The New Topographic photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, and Stephen Shore, documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America. the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signaled 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.

topographic photography:

Topographic Photographers

Robert Adams:

Biography :

Robert Adams, born May 8, 1937, is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid 1970s through his book The New West in 1974 and his participation in the exhibition New Topographies, Photographs of a Man Altered Landscape in 1975.

why was he famous?

Robert Adams is an American photographer best known for his images of the American West. Offering solemn meditations on the landscapes of California, Colorado, and Oregon, Adams’s black-and-white photos document the changes wrought by humans upon nature.

Why did Robert Adams get into photography?

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 most famous image:

Robert Adams images:

Lewis Baltz

Biography:

Lewis Baltz was born in Newport Beach, California, he studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, and received an MFA from the Claremont Graduate School in 1971. 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 Ecole National Supergenre des Beaux Arts, Paris, and the Art Academy of Helsinki. His work has been included in major exhibitions, including New Topographic at the George Eastman House in 1975 and Mirrors and Windows at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978. Baltz, who received National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1973 and 1977 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1977, has produced many projects on commission, among them The Nation’s Capital in Photographs for the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Near Reno for the Nevada State Arts Commission. He has been based in Europe since the mid1980s and travels extensively.

what made Lewis Baltz famous?

He was an important figure in the New Topographics movement of the late 1970s. His best known work was monochrome photography of suburban landscapes and industrial parks which highlighted his commentary of void within the “American Dream”.

what made Lewis Baltz start photography?

Like his contemporaries Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, and Bernd and Hilla Becher, Baltz focused his camera on the unassuming green spaces and architecture of tract housing, office parking lots, and industrial parks.

Lewis Baltz photography:

New Topographic photoshoot

Best Images:

Edits:

Evaluation :

For all of my edits I have used photoshop and Lightroom, I began by choosing some of my best images in Lightroom and manipulating them by changing the highlights, saturation, blacks/whites, brightness, and a few more things, I then saved that version of the image before changing the image to black and white and then resaving it as a new copy.

Best edit:

I would say this is one of my best edits as it has a range of different shades and structures which really make it stand out, the mix of colours within the greyscale makes this photo appealing to the eye, it is a very sharp and snappy image which has areas of pure darkness contrasted with areas of lighter shades which creates a really eye catching, unique effect. This image is a dead pan image which means its very centre lined and straight which is what the new topographic follows. The image is very clear and has a clear range and variety of different shapes within the image.

Within the image there are different generations of architecture, the buildings on the far left are new modern buildings which had been recently built, Then the image in the centre left side of the image was built years ago which makes the image stand out even more as there are three generations of buildings within one image, this shows the industrial side of the image.

Photo comparison :

In my image I have followed the way in which the new topographic photographers create images by making landscape images of buildings surrounded by the natural elements of the world, As seen in the comparing images they are very similar and both use a wide variation of greyscale and shades throughout the images, with the darker areas drawing your eyes and following out to the lighter areas of the images, both images have a lot of contrast within the shades and both have a variety of shapes and structures within.

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.

Mind Map

Mood Board

The photos I have highlighted green are the images I have chosen to edit, because they represent Romanticism and the sublime the best, by using different elements of nature. They also have the best lighting and are the most dramatic images. The images highlighted in other colours are the images I have chosen to use for my HDR.

I edited these images in the same way, by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and the blacks. I did this, so the images would have better lighting, because they originally had poor lighting. This also made the image brighter and the colours brighter.

I took this image at Harve De Pas at around 4pm on the beach. The photo is off into the distance and captures the rocks, sand, sea and the green mountain/fields in the distance. This image shows how a large amount of land is all still nature and has not been urbanised yet.

This is how the final edited images came out. They show the nature closer up and far in the distance. This portrays the beauty of nature well and relates to Romanticism, because it is beautiful, admired and has been kept and not urbanised yet, which was Romanticists goals. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, whites, shadows, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the exposure, blacks and highlights, so that the image would be brighter and the colours more vibrant.

This image was also taken at Harve De Pas beach and shows the nature up close and in the distance. It also relates to Romanticism, because it shows the beauty and peacefulness of the nature and the sea. However, it also links to the Sublime, because I had people in the photo, so that the comparison between the size of humans and the sea and rocks around could be seen. This highlights how big the sea is compared to humans, who are much smaller. The clouds also look ‘heavenly’ in this photo, so that symbolises the religious parts of Romanticism and how they believed nature was religious and sacred. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

The final edited image came out like this, of the sea, clouds, sand and rocks.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, whites, shadows and vibrancy, while decreasing the exposure, blacks and highlights, so that this image would be brighter and the green of the leaves would ‘pop’ more.

This image was taken in St Brelade near Corbiere in a little forest walk way.

I chose to have a person in this image, so that it would relate to the Sublime. The over grown bushes and trees are much larger and more powerful than the small human in the photo, which relates to the Sublime and how nature is strong and powerful and humans are nothing compared. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

The final edited image came out like this.

I edited this picture by increasing the contrast, exposure, whites, shadows, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the highlights and the blacks, so that this photo would have ,more of a contrast and more of a tonal range as the trees create shade closer up and there is a break in the trees further down, where there is sun light.

This image was taken in St. Catherine’s woods down near the lake.

This is the final edited image.

This image relates to the Sublime, because it presents how big the trees are, and how they tower over the much smaller people in this photo. It also supports romanticism, because the nature is beautiful, and the people are there to be in awe of it. The sun light coming through the break in the trees in the distance of the photo also looks ‘heavenly,’ which is important to Romanticism, because Romanticists believed that nature was sacred, because it was put it from God. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

I edited this image by increasing the contrast, shadows, whites and vibrancy, while decreasing the blacks and highlights, so that the clouds looked more grey and storm like, and the create contrast in the shades in the grass.

This image was taken at the sand dunes in St ounes.

This photo represents the sublime, because it shows how tiny a human is compared to a vast land of nature. It also shows how there is a storm brewing and how the clouds look ‘angry’ in a way. This supports the Sublime, because the Sublime supports nature as being stronger, bigger and more powerful than humans. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

I edited these three images by increasing the exposure, contrast, shadows, whites, vibrancy and saturation, while decreasing the blacks and highlights, so that the images would have better lighting, because the original images had poor lighting as they were taken in the dark using the flash.

These images were taken in St Andrews park in St Lawrence.

These are the final edited images.

These images relate to Romanticism, because they present lots of different elements of nature, such as trees and flowers. They present the beauty of them all and the vastness of the nature, as there is nature all through into the distance, with no urbanisation, as it is still a grass field. This also relates to Ansel Adams work.

HDR Merge

Next, I wanted to make a HDR, but I had no photos with bracketed exposure. However, I did take some images at school with bracketed exposure with Mr Toft, but they were lost. Instead, I decided to use these images to make a HDR:

I used Lightroom to create my HDR, but I also did attempt with photoshop, but ultimately decided I prefer using Lightroom.

I chose three images from above with different exposures to create my HDR. Then, I merged them together and chose the type of exposure I wanted.

Here is the HDR in Lightroom with the overlay, while I decided my exposure.

Here is my final HDR image, after using Lightroom to create it.

Then, I experimented with other photos I had taken using exposure bracketing.

These are the images I used to create this HDR:

Edit One

For this first photo I used the masking tool to darken the sky without changing the rest of the photo too much. I turned the whole photo to black and white in the style of Lewis Baltz and the new topographic movement. This helped the photo hugely as it added tone to an otherwise flat photo (created by the mix of dull yellows in the original).

Edit Two

Edit two, this has a different subject point. Instead of being a landscape styled image this uses the pillar as a central point to the photo. To emphasis this I used a high contrast black and white adjustment, this helped keep the deadpan tone in the photo. By changing it to black and white removes the yellow tones that are otherwise distracting and makes the photo seem a bit average, where as the black and white gets people to look at the detail they normally miss.

Edit Three

I wanted to use this shot as my third edit because it is a great shot showing the new topographic inspiration. While it is busier than most deadpan photos I used the black and white to reduce some of the atmospheric noise created by the different colours and textures of the sea and surrounding landscape.

Edit Four

I loved this shot and thought it had a lot of potential so to help make it a better photo I levelled the building slightly using the crop tool and then changed the photo to black and white, looking at the tone and making sure the contrast wasn’t too high as I wanted the grey scale to be visible. Often in the New Topographic style and Lewis Baltz in particular grey scale is used as most of the photos are black and white but with low contrast to keep the deadpan look, this is often linked to Ansel Adam’s work as many believe the new topographics style is inspired by his work.

Edit Five

This was my final edit for this project so far as I liked how the water appeared almost still due to the moment the photo was taken the wave had just started to break at the edges. The black and white enhanced the photo, increasing the contrast helped the detail become visible as before the brick work wasn’t as noticeable nor did it really add to the photo and after the editing the photo seems much more joined and has a more deadpan look to the overall image.

Final Images

This photoshoot is my response to the New Topographics area of photography. To take these photos we used the natural sunlight and adjusted the aperture and shutter speed to make sure the photos were good quality and well exposed. These photographs are mainly focusing on one area, Harve Des Pas beach, and the old and new buildings on and around it. This was a good photoshoot place as the beach itself has man made modifications on it showing how the urban world is and has been taking over. The buildings that surround it gave me a good opportunity to take photos of the beach alone, the buildings and both at once.

The photos below are some of my best ones edited into black and white:

Ansel Adams uses a large format view camera, where he used the lowest aperture, f/64 which allowed him to capture the fine detail and sharpness across the whole photo, allowing him to print larger images. The smaller the aperture, means a greater depth of field is created. Ansel Adams captures his photos mainly on black and white film still, which helps focus the viewers attention, whilst emphasising shapes rather than colours. This creates an interesting effect because we can also see the contrast in colour, which creates a unique gradients of darker and lighter grey tones.

The depth created in the photo is elevated by the snake river that runs up the middle of the photo, creating a unique depth of field leading us up to the mountains. This creates an important focus point in the landscape as the darker tones creates contrast, giving a dramatic effect as they are softly elevated by the speckled lighter tones that outline areas, creating a more warmer tone and feel. As we can see from areas of the sky and the river, the light that shines and outlines areas creates a smooth but rough texture in places. As the viewer we pay more attention to the lighter areas as we would typically notice this straight away, as they are exaggerated and highlighted more by the darker tones that surround these areas.

The Tetons and Snake River is one of the most famous pieces of photography in the world, inspiring many photographers. Some described the photo as ‘iconic’ because of the unique setting and compositions. The particular way you get lost looking up the river, gives an elevated and sinuous sense of reading, making you look and move in an indirect and curving way. Making you feel calm because it softly changes direction whilst flowing off into the distance. This effect is also created by the subtle contrast in light, as it changes from the very illuminated areas to darker areas.

Ansel Adams communicates to the viewer the ‘greatness of nature.’ He used the river because he wanted our eyes to circulate in the river, which would lead our eyes up into the mountains. Adams used the late afternoon light which creates reflection and balances the exposure, elevating the texture and compositions in the landscape. It dramatises the landscape, because of the shadows created whilst it also exaggerates the textures throughout.

Intro

Ansel Adams is a very well known photographer. He is best known for his incredible landscape photos that he took in the Yosemite Valley in California.

Adams was born in 1902 in San Fransisco. In his early life, he faced many problems due to a nose injury that left it permanently disfigured. Additionally, Adams was a very shy person. Because of this, Adams didn’t have a great school life, and was constantly moving schools. Eventually, Adams was homeschooled. This meant that he then had more free time to himself. This is most likely when Ansel found his love for nature and photography. It is said that Ansel enjoyed long walks in the sand dunes and forests around his home in San Francisco.

At age 14, Ansel and his family visited the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the Yosemite Valley. This was Adams’s first time in the Yosemite Valley. Adams was quoted saying, “That first impression of the valley—white water, azaleas, cool fir caverns, tall pines and solid oaks, cliffs rising to undreamed-of heights, the poignant sounds and smells of the Sierra… was a culmination of experience so intense as to be almost painful”. He had taken with him a Kodak Brownie Box camera, a portable camera in the shape of a box. With this camera, he began to take photos of the beautiful mountains and flowing rivers of the Yosemite Valley.

Techniques

Over the years, Adams developed a few interesting photographical techniques. One of these was splitting the photograph into different zones, determined by the black and white gradient. This is called the ‘zone system’.

This is done by manipulating the exposure settings of the camera (e.g. shutter speed) so that there is no pure black or pure white, and all of the zones of the photo fit within the zone rule. His main rule was that you should “Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights”. Adams would do this while he was taking the photo. He also liked to use filters as well to enhance his meticulous colouring technique. It is also worth noting that Ansel used a film camera to take his photos. With a modern digital camera, this technique is more difficult to replicate because the light comes out more linearly, and exposing and developing is not possible.

Additionally, Adams edited his photos after they were taken. In a darkroom where the images would develop, Ansel would ‘dodge’ and ‘burn’ his images. Dodging the photo means to place an object above a region of the photo to block the light in the darkroom from reaching it, therefore exposing the photo in that region. Burning is the opposite of dodging, placing an outline of the region above the image so that the light in the dark room only reaches the open region, therefore underexposing the region. Ansel was known for being very good at both of these techniques, and it became a vital part of his photographical process.

Analysis

This is a photograph of the Half Dome summit in Yosemite. It is an iconic part of the Yosemite landscape, and in this photo dominates the majority of the frame. Adams did this to make the summit look as grand and massive as possible, and filling the frame with it creates this effect. This technique also makes the image appear flat and almost two-dimensional. However, Adams uses this two-dimensional appearance to fit the moon in the frame. Additionally, the summit and the moon are on opposite sides of the frame. This was most likely done to fill the frame up better, rather than having a blank corner in the top left. The Half Dome summit is also a great object to photograph. This is because the steep cliff has these long vertical lines that lead the eye down the cliff. Also, the cliff stands very tall above its surroundings, which is helpful for getting as much light as possible.

The lighting in this photo is also used rather interestingly. Because of the shadow on the side of the cliff, I can guess that this photo was taken at sunset. Adams uses the shadows to remove parts of the frame. This is done with the dark cliff on the left, and the part of the Half Dome that is outside of the frame on the right. Adams did this for two reasons. One was to create this smooth shape in the middle of the photo with the shadows. Two was to underexpose the photo to remove the detail in the shadows. This is so that the parts of the photo that are shaded are basically removed from the photo entirely, which increases the viewer’s focus on the exposed parts of the photo.

The story of this photo is quite spontaneous. It was taken while Ansel Adams was travelling through Yosemite. Adams saw this view of the Half Dome and decided to bring it to its full potential. The Half Dome summit appears multiple times throughout Ansel’s work since the beginning, when he first presented this image titled ‘Monolith, the Face of Half Dome’.

Although this is the same Half Dome that we see in the previous picture, it is clear that this angle offers a different perspective and overall a different interpretation of the Half Dome from Ansel Adams. Adams is quoted saying, “I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood… The many images I have made reflect my varied creative responses to this remarkable granite monolith”. It is very clear that Ansel has a fascination with not only the Yosemite Valley, but the specific mountains and peaks that make it iconic.

Photoshoot

In my response to Ansel Adams, I want to reflect Adams’ fascination with the Yosemite Valley by setting my photoshoot in a location in Jersey that I enjoy visiting, Plemont Beach.

The photoshoot took place in sunny, mid-day conditions when the tide was very low, which was enhanced by the wide range of tides that we experience in Jersey during the springtime.

During the photoshoot, I was very much inspired by Ansel Adams and his connection to the Yosemite Valley. When looking through Adams’s work, it is very clear that he is mostly fascinated by the Yosemite Valley. I compare this to my fascination with Plemont Beach. My idea going into this photoshoot was to show the parts of Plemont that I love the most. These were concentrated on the right side of the beach where the sun was at the time.

I started with some basic postcard-like landscape photos that were mainly focused on filling the frame with the right amount of land, ocean and sky.

I then started to use the rule of thirds in a portrait frame. This then formed into making some deadpan photos.

I was also very inspired by the rocks that were sat next to the ocean. I felt that I could use the rocks and the ocean, but also the other Channel Islands in the distance to fill the frame. I found that having a rock in the foreground of the image created a better environment in the photos.

I tried this idea with quite a few rocks that were scattered around that area of the beach. Eventually, I found the angle that I was looking for.

This was immediately a very powerful photo to me. The water flowing from the bottom of the image leads the eye towards the rock in the foreground, and moves on towards the final rock on the outside of the beach. In the distance, you can see Little Herm, Herm and Sark. The rule of thirds is also unintentionally used multiple times in this photo.

There are three islands in the distance;

the rocks in the foreground, the rock to the right of that and the islands in the distance also follow the rule of thirds;

and the flowing water follows the ‘left, right, left’ pattern that the example above does too.

All of this accumulates into a very visually appealing photo. I would say that it was inspired by this Ansel Adams photo that demonstrates similar ‘snake-like’ features.

In inspiration of this photo, I also edited a black and white version of my photo following Ansel Adams’ ‘zone system’.

I also briefly took photos of a cliff face which is fairly hidden away at Plemont, and I thought that I may be able to replicate another specific photo from Ansel Adams.

I experimented with a few different perspectives, but unfortunately I was very quick photographing this area and I didn’t experiment very much. However, these photos did turn out very well.

The comparison between these two photos is very obvious. Both cliffs are used to lead the eye from the top of the photo to the bottom, where in my image you can see a pool of water. Arguably, Ansel Adams did a better job at leading the eye down the frame as there are very apparent lines in the cliff face that they eye can easily follow, however, I am pleased at how comparable these two images are.

I also wanted to capture the sublime nature of standing alone between the vast cliffs either side of Plemont, and how empty it feels to stand alone in this vast landscape. Luckily, there was a person standing alone in the middle of everything. I knew this was a perfect opportunity for a great photo.

This second one I really liked. The sublime nature of this photo really stands out. The subject stands completely alone in the foreground, he is surrounded by the immense cliffs of Plemont, and towered by the cloudy sky above. I decided to experiment with this a little bit.

I tried to make a black and white version of this photo to enhance the feeling of emptiness prevalent in the photo.

I was very happy with how this turned out. I cropped the image to make the rocks and the subject equidistant to either side of the frame. The image is almost two-tone, which makes it fairly simple and easy to look at. The artistic message is very clear in this photo. The atmosphere is very lonely, and the photo feels quite mysterious and dark. However, I felt that the cliffs in this photo are too dark, so I decided to dodge that region of the photo to expose the cliffs.

Overall, I am very happy with this photo shoot in general. The weather conditions were perfect, and I was very able to capture Plemont the way that I had in mind. I may not have captured every part of Plemont that I had planned on, but I did end up with a good selection of best images.

Final Images

Topographic Photography is a technique in which typically a landscape is being photographed from afar.

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.

Some very important New Topographic Artists were, Robert Adams, Frank Gohlke and then Bernd and Hilla Becher.

Robert Adams focused on changing landscape in the American West. ‘New Topographic’ from Adams, meant the romanticism and idealism traditionally associated with landscape photography. Instead, they adopted a more objective and detached approach to capture the contemporary urban and suburban environment.

Frank Gohlke was also an American but he received two Guggenheim fellowships from the national Endowment for Arts. Gohlke’s oeuvre is marked by a preoccupation with framing landscape as a manmade construct: an artefact of the way we live, a projection of human actions, ideals and aspirations onto the horizon. Landscape is where the human and the natural worlds connect, and in Gohlke’s view, humanity’s power is limited, fragile and temporary. 

These topographic photos show a connection between nature and the human aspect called juxtaposition. These two differences join together to create contrast and show how humans and nature always conjoin throughout life.

Robert Adam who was born in may 1937 in City Of Orange, New Jersey, United States and is currently 86 years old, was a talented photographer who discovered his love for photography at the age of 25 when he was an English teacher.

After he spent some time in Scandinavia with his Swedish wife, whose name was Kerstin, he realised the complexities of the American geography that merited exploration.

Adams reshaped the visual expression of landscape photography and injected purpose and innovation into his work. He brought that sense of harsh reality of landscapes and heightened the sense of purpose in the world of photography.

Robert did not care for the aesthetic side of landscapes, rather he directly engaged with the world highlighting the dynamic and profound significance. Instead of him romancing landscapes, he borough that context of reality to life, he showed the world what was real and what wasn’t.

He is widely known for inhibiting the landscapes of the America west after 1960, where he followed the footsteps of photographers like Timothy H. O’Sullivanand William Henry Jackson. However what distinguishes Adams from such photographers is his consistency in black and white photography and square formats in his arts work.

Throughout his 50-year professional career, he produced over 20 books that presented his work. Looking through these books will enable people to track the evolution of his approach to the art of photography.