To take these images we all went down to Havre de pas and took some images of the surrounding scenery and the man made structures. This photoshoot was a way to show the comparison of nature in juxtaposition to man-made structures.

photoshoot

Edited images

Joiners

one of the most famous joiner landscape artist is David Hockney known for his collage images of the same scene from different angles and viewpoints.

Joiner images show a fragmented version of the way that the human vision works showing an insight into various different viewpoints in one frame these images can often appear abstract which gives them a unique and artistic feel.

The process of making a joiner image involves taking multiple photos of the same scene from different viewpoints and angles and editing the images and creating a collage or adding them together so that they are overlapping to create and long view of the same scene shown in my own joiner that I made below.

this joiner I made manually on photoshop by creating an untitled document and opening all the images I wanted to use on separate tabs and resized and placed them where I wanted them to be on the document.

David Hockney

David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th and 21st century, and an important contributor to the pop art movement.

in 1964 Hockney moved to LA where he created his series of images that involved swimming pools using new vibrant colours. However it was in the early 1980’s when Hockney started his photo collages which he called his joiner images first using his polaroid pictures and commercially processed prints, which were normally snap shot images of which he arranged to make composite images of a single subject as the images are all taken from slightly different angles and perspectives.

“Creation of the “joiners” occurred accidentally. He noticed in the late 1960s that photographers were using cameras with wide-angle lenses. He did not like these photographs because they looked somewhat distorted.” – copied from Wikipedia

Hockney Analysis

This is image is taken using a polaroid camera and the genre of this photography is landscape ( joiner).

The mise-en-scene presents a backyard with a pool in the middle with the individual pictures from this taken in all different angles. The tone of this image is quite light overall, due to the amount of the concrete / slabs which adds a nice juxtaposition and contrast compared to the dark shadowed area created by the trees. The use of light in this image is soft, however, I it is natural lighting as they are outside. The focus distance is long as everything is in focus including all the background and foreground of the image. The depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the images would be the sections of the borders between each polaroid image.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in as most of the image is in focus. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

Panoramas

Panoramic photography shows a larger or expanded view of what would normally be a singular image, typically with a larger aspect ratio than a standard lens or frame. Allowing you to depict even whole cityscapes in a singular shot when compared to a show where the photographer has used a regular 50mm lens.

APECT RATIO: normally an image would have a 3:2 ratio or a 4:3 ratio compared to a panoramic image which would have an aspect ratio of 2:1 or wider which is what lets them show more of the scenery.

One technique of creating panoramic images is rotating your camera along a horizonal or vertical plane taking multiple images as you move the camera and these images are then out together by software to create on continuous photo. However, now on your iPhone you are able to use a panoramic mode which pouts the images together for you whilst your taking the image which is how I did my panoramic images.

Contact Sheet

The Selection

Editing

Exposure Compensation- Exposure compensation basically helps you override automatic exposure adjustments your camera makes in situations with uneven light distribution, filters, non-standard processing, or underexposure or overexposure. It lets you take control of your image’s brightness by manually increasing or decreasing exposure.

Exposure Bracketing- Basically, when you bracket your shots you take exactly the same picture of your subject at several different exposures. This technique gives you a range of options to choose from when you’re editing. As a result, it’s much less likely that you’ll end up with a badly underexposed or overexposed photo.

HDR Photos- The term dynamic range describes the ratio between the brightest and darkest parts of an image. HDR, or high dynamic range, can describe the cameras or techniques you can use to capture a greater dynamic range than SDR (standard dynamic range, a non-HDR format) camera sensors can record.

Exposure Bracketing Camera Guide

1. Click Av on the camera

• In the menu, select the second tab and go to ‘Expo. Comp. /AEB

• Use the dial on the top of the camera to set the range of exposure you want to capture with your 2nd and 3rd photo

• After you have set the exposure range, you will see two extra marks on the exposure metre

• Now take 3 photos and your camera will automatically change the exposure for each one.
• TIP: You can also set the camera to continuous shooting, to take 3 photos in close succession – all you need to do is hold the shutter button down.

Exposure Bracketing Experiment

I used the exposure bracketing setting on the camera which takes 3 images with your chosen exposure. 1 as normal exposure 1 as a higher exposure and 1 with a lower exposure.

How To Do It

Select the 3 images:

Right Click and select Photo Merge HDR:

Final HDR Image

Second Images

Final Image

Images

HDR Image

Images

HDR Image

Experimenting using lightroom

Vignette

How to: select effects and change the amount of vignette and if you want it to be lighter or darker

My Vignette Images

Experimenting with filter pre-sets

The new Topographics was a term made by William Jenkins which was used to describe a group of American photographers whose photos had a similar banal aesthetic. in that they were formal and mostly taken in black and white, there photos also consisted of the urban landscape around them.

The New Topographics mostly focused on Man-altered landscapes such as homes packed together, industrial buildings, roads and anything that disrupted the view or area of natural landscapes.

Historical context

The New Topographics were mostly made in response to the fast increasing suburbanised world around them. Topographic photos were taken around the 70s and the historical context of why America were becoming more suburban is that in post-war America, to accommodate all the returning soldiers coming home and to keep up with the new innovations in the industrial sector, they decided to build more buildings and more homes as well as more roads so vehicles (which were rising in popularity more and more) could drive along these paths. As a result it ended up transforming areas, which were previously natural and contained good views of the landscape ahead into buildings and roads which expanded for 100s of miles in each direction which resulted into landscapes beyond these buildings being barley visible and big natural areas being removed in order to build these man made structures.

Why were Photographers interested in these structures?

Most photographers took pictures of these manmade structures to show the growing unease of how natural landscapes were being replaced and removed by industrial development. Places once natural and untouched were now cleared and terraformed in order to make space for buildings and roads which would be placed instead.

Artist Reference – Stephen Shore

Technical

The photo uses natural daylight in this image which lights the image up quite strongly as their is no clouds in the sky to cover up the suns light. You can also see the image uses a slow shutter speed as we can see the cars on the left side of the image appear quite blurry. The temperature of the lighting is cold as the image contains more of a blue hue than a yellow hue of colour. We can also see that due to the way the lighting is projecting towards the object, it ends up creating hard edged shadows of the objects/structures in the image.

Visual

With this photo you can see the hard edged shadows that form around the objects and structures. The image is aligned in a specific manner that it resembles some aspects of the rule of thirds. We can also notice that starting from the top of the image with the bright blue skies and then moving towards the bottom half of the image that it starts to become more cluttered with buildings, signs and lamp posts obstructing the view ahead. The photo is in a square format which allows the focus of the image to be more concentrated towards the bottom and the picture appears to be pointed towards nature by the way some objects are pointed like the signs or the direction the cars are driving towards.

Contextual

This picture might be focused on the achievement of cars and how prices for them have gone down meaning lots more people are able to afford them and drive hundreds of miles and have the freedom to go anywhere. We can also see nationalism on the gas station sign as it uses the iconic colours of the American flag.

Conceptual

This image might be showing us the gradual change from natural landscapes to man-made structures which is starting to benefit the majority of people. From the cheap cars to the wide range of options of where to go for food or shopping in town areas. This photo could also be seen as a depicting the start of the American dream and how it looks to live in America.

What is it ?

New topographics is a term created by William Jenkins in 1975 to refer to a collection of American photographers, including Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz. Their work shared a common, ordinary style, characterized by formal, predominantly black and white images of urban environments.

Key features

Their photos captured the constructed surroundings, suburban expansion, industrial buildings, and the ordinary details of everyday life occurring in the American landscape after World War II, all presented with a sense of objectivity and a nearly scientific distance.

What was the new topographics a reaction to ?

The striking, well-printed images of this ordinary yet strangely captivating landscape served as both a mirror of the growing suburban environment surrounding them and a response to the oppressive nature of idealized landscape photography that glorified the natural world and its basic elements.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams, born in 1937, is a renowned American photographer known for capturing the evolving scenery of the American West. He gained recognition in the mid-1970s with his book “The New West,” published in 1974, and by being part of the 1975 exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” Throughout his career, he has been honoured with two Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, and the Hasselblad Award.

His photos

Photo Analysis

Technical – The image depicts a gas station located at the border, likely taken during the evening or night since the main source of light comes from the artificial lamps that can be seen. The details in the foreground are sharp and well-defined, suggesting that a high aperture setting and a deep depth of field were utilized. Additionally, there is very little visual noise, indicating that the ISO was kept low, probably around 100.

Visual – The image is entirely in black and white, which enhances its somber mood, as the gas station seems to dominate the landscape. There’s a strong contrast between light and dark, with the gas station in the front featuring lighter shades, while the mountains in the back remain shadowy and unlit. The way the station is positioned adds a sense of depth and three-dimensionality, contributing to the overall dramatic effect.

Contextual/Conceptual – Adams was a member of The New Topographics, a movement that examined how human-made structures impact natural environments. This is evident in the image, where the gas station draws attention away from the distant mountains, highlighting the tension between artificial and natural landscapes.

Examples in Jersey

Recycling plant in St Helier

Car parks

Piers

Stephen Shore

CASE STUDY: Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print

Analysis and discussion… starting points and key features of The New Topographics

• Foreground vs background | Dominant features
• Composition | low horizon line | Square format
• Perspective and detail / cluttering
• Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
• Colour | impact and relevance
• Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
• Social commentary | The American Dream ?
• An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

Technical – The lighting in this image is natural harsh but warm light, most likely a late morning or middle of day light. This type of lighting causes hard edged shadows. A large format camera with a high aperture was used to take this photo, this is how all the small details where captured within the image.

Visual – This image mostly follows the rule of thirds with a lot of horizontal and vertical lines, the horizon is in the bottom third of the image, this causes the image to seem somewhat compressed. The leading lines in the image all point towards the mountains and back to nature.

Contextual/ Conceptual – The images focal point draws the viewer towards the mountains in the background, it hints at freedom and how you can get in your car and drive anywhere, however it comes at a cost of the environment. Furthermore the red, white and and blue colours hint at the American flag.

Photoshoot plan

Where: I will go to town to take my photos as this is where I think the strongest photos will come from.

When: I am going to go around 3-4 pm as there is still plenty of light for me to take my photos

What: I will take photos of buildings and other architectural features, I will also like to find some run down buildings as I think this will be a bonus

My Photoshoot

Selection Process

My best photos

I chose these photos as they stood out the most amongst the other photos, they also follow The New Topographic style closely.

Basic editing

Black and white

By changing my images into black and white it allows me to closer relate them to The New Topographic style of photography

Further editing

Composition experiments

My final composition

Art steps

Evaluation

I believe my photos turned out really well. They stick to the original artist’s style to some degree, but I also added my own twist to the project and made some changes.

What is it?

New topographics was a term made 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.

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. 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 were the new topographics a reaction to?

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

Case Study – Robert Adams

Robert Adams, born in 1937, is a prominent American photographer renowned for his exploration of the evolving landscapes of the American West. His work gained significant recognition in the mid-1970s, particularly with the publication of his book, The New West, in 1974, and his involvement in the 1975 exhibition titled New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. Throughout his career, Adams has been awarded with two Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, and the Hasselblad Award.

Critic Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian about Adams’ work, 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.

Image Analysis

Technical – The picture shows a gas station on the frontier, presumably at darker hours which means the lighting for the image is coming mostly from the manmade lamps that are visible. All details in the foreground are clear and visible, meaning a high aperture value and deep depth of field were likely used – furthermore, there is little to none visual noise meaning ISO was kept to a minimal value such as 100.

Visual – The picture is completely lacking in colour being in black and white, which helps add to the bleakness of the image due to the gas station almost having invaded the landscape. There is also a clear contrast in light and dark tones, with the station in the foreground having more of an emphasis on lighter tones with the mountains in the background not being illuminated and therefore being darker. There is also a sense of depth and three dimensions with how the station has been positioned in the image, helping to create a sense of drama.

Contextual/Conceptual – Adams was part of The New Topograhics with a focus on manmade landscapes and their effect on natural ones, hence why the image focuses on a station which is taking away the focus and attention from the mountains placed farther away in the background.

Stephen Shore

Key features:

• Foreground vs background | Dominant features
• Composition | low horizon line | Square format
• Perspective and detail / cluttering
• Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
• Colour | impact and relevance
• Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
• Social commentary | The American Dream?
• An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

Image analysis:

Technical – The image features natural light, likely taken in the most prominent hours of sunshine (~12pm) which casts distinct, hard-edged shadows on the pavement. It is also likely a high aperture was used since there is clear detail in all aspects of the image, even the mountains in the distance to an extent.

Visual – There is some alignment to the rule of thirds which the lamp posts, but the main visual feature of this image is the fact that most of the detail is cluttered in the bottom third with the two top thirds of the image being almost empty except from the sky and gas station sky, which when combined with the lines leading towards the mountains creates a contrast between this suburban area and the natural landscape off in the distance.

Contextual/Conceptual – The image features predominantly the colours red white and blue, linking to the American flag which when considering the lines pointing off towards the horizon creates links towards American pride for their landscapes.

Examples in Jersey

Recycling Plant – Fort Regent

Around this area there is plenty of natural landscape (e.g. Havre des Pas), allowing for images capturing both man-made and natural landscapes for contrast.

Car Parks

Car parks are fully man-made and create a bleak atmosphere, containing mostly artificial lighting and the lack of people also adds to the uncomfortable mood.

Tunnels

The lights along the top of tunnels create leading lines which direct attention towards the end of the tunnel, creating immersive images with a dramatic atmosphere.

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

These photos have an uneasy contrast between man and nature, it shows the responsibility we hold on the landscapes future.

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.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

The New Topographic Movement represented a paradigm shift in the world of photography and had a profound influence on contemporary art. It forced viewers to reconsider their perceptions of the environment, the impact of human activity on the landscape, and the aesthetics of the ordinary.

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.

Historical Context : Post-war America struggled with

Family’s living in America before the war struggled with many situations such as 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. They also struggled with Vast distances, road networks and mobility

CASE STUDY: Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print

• Foreground vs background | Dominant features
• Composition | low horizon line | Square format
• Perspective and detail / cluttering
• Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
• Colour | impact and relevance
• Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
• Social commentary | The American Dream ?
• An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

The aperture is a little slow as the car on the left hand side is slightly blurry. the photo has a wide depth of field, the lighting is natural, from the sun and the photo is probably taken around late morning/early afternoon. the lighting in this photo is quite cold. there are many shadows with hard edges from the sun which helps us find out what time of day it is. across the picture there is vertical lines from the lamppost and signs. there is the rule of thirds and as the photo has a low horizon line it lowers the composition in the photo. the mountain is also hard edge, it is miles away but the photo makes it looks a lot closer than it is. the image looks like its leading the viewer towards the mountains in the background, indicating to get out of the busy area. the photo is connected to transport and getting around, the photo has at least 3 petrol stations and 7+ cars, nothing in the photo is coming towards the viewers however it makes it look like if you were to follow the road you would get to the mountain. in this photos the most seen colours are red white and blue which creates a sense of nationality as they are Americas colours of the flag.

Harve Des Par photoshoot

Here is my contact sheet which consists of 353 different photos that i took on our school trip to harve des par.

In this photo there is the reflection of lines of the tower and the trees making a repetitive pattern on the sea.

This is before and after editing some of my photos. I’ve edited all of them to make them black and white therefore they all look the same this way my photos look neat and organised.

Photo evaluation:

The lighting in all these photos is natural as it was during the day time however I have changed the photos from natural to black and white as it still shows good tones between the light and dark areas. the photos being black and white help the viewer not get distracted by the colours and therefore they look more into the image. it also helps tell a story by it being black and white.

Definition

“New Topographic: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary photography landscape held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography from October 1975 to February 1976. topographic is the physical feature of the area.

Term from William Jenkins

New topographic was a term called by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers (such as Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz) whose pictures had a similar aesthetic, in that they were formal, which are mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape.

Their photographs were taken in a built-up environment, suburban sprawl, industrial structures, and the mundane aspects of daily life.

The New Topographies photographers, which include 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 man made structures of post-war America: car parks , suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. These photographs, stark and documentary, are often a lack of human presence.

Jenkins described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, which conveys the substantial amounts of visual information but was very serious in the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion.

Features

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

What Was The New Topographic A Reaction To?

They were reacted by the tyranny of an idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Image Analysis-Stephen Shore

Technical

In this image there is a slow shutter speed due to the cars in the distance being blurred. The light is a natural light because it was taken near lots of petrol stations. This is a very strong but cold light. The light was projecting towards the signs which will create hard edge shadows that will project onto the pavement below.

Visual

There is hard edge square pavement, signs and the horizon line , which creates harsh, clear lines . The rule of thirds are present because this image can be split into a grid, into threes. There is lots of repetition with the signs due to ,most of the lines being squared shaped.

Contextual

By using the red, white and blue colour theme it represents the American flag, which conveys national pride of the nation. By having lots of petrol stations it implies that this era focuses on the oil industry and the nature in the background represents the environment. With these two together, it shows a connection between the oil industry and the nature of the American dream in the the 1970s. By being in a town it conveys isolation due to being far away from a city and it also implies a sense of community because everyone will know everyone that lives in this small town.

Conceptual

This image connects nature and the oil industry. It also looks like the angle of the mountain is pointing to the petrol stations.