New Topographics– Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape
New Topographics was created in 1975 by William Jenkins 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. This movement, known as the New Topographics, represented a significant shift in the way we view the world around us. It is the idea of photographing man altered landscapes. They trained their cameras on the by-products of post-war suburban expansion: freeways, gas stations, industrial parks, and tract homes.
What was the New Topographics a reaction to?
The New Topographics reacts to the ‘old’ idea of landscapes which every bit of the image captures nature without any influence by humans, meanwhile the new concept of landscapes is the idea of man made and nature combined how humans have the need to expand taking away the natural land.
Historical Context : Post-war America struggle
The late 1960s and the early 1970s were a turbulent time for the US economy. President Johnson’s Great Society brought about major spending programs across a broad array of social initiatives at a time when the US fiscal situation was already being strained by the Vietnam War. These growing fiscal imbalances complicated monetary policy.
Months after World War II ended more babies were born thatn ever before 3.4 million, 20 percent more than in 1945. This was the beginning of the so-called “baby boom.” In 1947, another 3.8 million babies were born; 3.9 million were born in 1952; and more than 4 million were born every year from 1954 until 1964, when the boom finally tapered off. By then, there were 76.4 million “baby boomers” in the United States. They made up almost 40 percent of the nation’s population.
https://www.history.com/articles/baby-boomers-1
In the 1970s, there was a much bigger stigma surrounding mental health than there is today. In an article written by Wulf Rossler titled, “The Stigma of Mental Health,” Rossler talks about the rise of this stigma surrounding mental health. He discusses the negative impacts of this stigma and how it has affected the way people view mental health. He writes, “A scientific concept on the stigma of mental disorders was first developed in the middle of the 20th century, first theoretically and eventually empirically in the 1970s.” This explains when the stigma was adopted. The time period it comes from was a time period where mental health was not addressed in schools. He continues to say, “Overall, the 1960s and 1970s were full of an anti‐psychiatry attitude, blaming psychiatry for being repressive, coercive and more damaging than helpful to patients.” This portrays the idea that mental health wasn’t important and something that shouldn’t be discussed back in the 1970s.
https://commons.trincoll.edu/edreform/author/acataldo
All these issues in the 1970s inspired the photographers then, they were showing through their photography the main issues in America at that time.
Topographic Photographers:
Robert Adams
Robert Adams was born in 1937 in Orange, New Jersey. After earning a PhD in English literature and teaching the subject for several years at Colorado College, he became a photographer in the mid-1960s. Adams has published more than 40 books of photographs, with the changing landscape of the American West as his primary subject;
“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.”
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore was a photographer. Born in New York City in 1947, he learned about and practiced photography from the age of six. In 1958, Shore was given a copy of Walker Evans’ book American Photographs introducing him to a descriptive visual language of place. At the age of fourteen, his work was bought by Edward Steichen for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. From 1965 through 1967, Shore worked in Andy Warhol’s studio, the Factory, a formative experience that allowed him to experiment with combining documentary and conceptual modes later images. In 1971, at the age of twenty-four, Shore had a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first accorded a living American photographer.
Shore emerged in the 1970s as one of the major exponents of colour photography, shooting bleak yet lyrical scenes of the North American landscape. Documenting everyday settings and objects, from hotel swimming pools and televisions to parking lots, gas stations, and deserted roads, Shore exhibited an ability to transform commonplace surroundings into compelling works of art,
https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/stephen-shore?all/all/all/all/0
Analysis
CASE STUDY: Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print
Technical :
- The light on this image is very bright because of the natural sunny day, Stephen is using a 8×10 camera on a tripod to capture as much detail as possible
Visual:
- The colour in this image is very vibrant the predominate colours being blue white and red with might represent the American flag.
- The image is very busy with cars, signs, petrol station, lights,…
- the mountain can be seen in the background with is the only part of the image that is not altered by men.
- The sign of the petrol station is pointing at the mountain.
Conceptual:
- This image was taken in 1975 in America and different from most countries around the world at this time America looked quite modern, every building built had a propose and nature quite disappeared. What I find interesting in this image is how the big sign of the petrol station was pointing at the mounting.
- “In the 1970s was a period with both high inflation and uneven economic growth. High budget deficits, lower interest rates, the oil embargo, and the collapse of managed currency rates contributed to stagflation.”
- America is only about 500 years old so all the architecture is very modern compared to Europe which there are still a lot of building with old structures.
