New Topographics Session

During this session, we looked at a photographic group who were called the 'New Topographics'. They were formed in 1975, and were a group of 168 artistic works made by 10 photographers. As a group, their photographic subjects were man-altered landscapes, and they each had a singular photographic style, making their work a range of different techniques and personal styles. Here is the list of the photographers, some information into their subjects and photographs and an example of one of their photographs:

Robert Adams - He photographed man made structures on grassy landscapes, showing how man has infiltrated nature, and overtaken it with their technology and structures. His photographs are quiet, with a straight-forward style.

Lewis Baltz - Photographed industrial parks, really taking into account the aesthetic considerations whilst shooting. His photographs are all composed nicely, making them have a really specific and recognizable quality. 

Berdt and Hilla Becher - Photographed using typology techniques (photographing the same thing from different angles). They used non-descript lighting, making the photograph look flat, with little shadows.

Joe Deal - He took his photographs from a high angle, with little or no sky shown in the image, and he portrayed a compositional balance between landscape and structures.

Frank Gohlke - He photographed landscapes that appear empty, deserted with little to no people. From a photographers viewpoint.

Nicholas Nixon - His photographs seem to be very 'in your face', with the city taking over the photograph. People are shown at a very small scale, and the city landscapes are shown to be very busy.

John Schott - Photographed motels and typology, and his photographs were not necessarily consistent, in the fact that they all look so different and unique. 

Steven Shore - He was one of the only photographers in the group to shoot using colour, and also shoot on 10x8 film too. There are no people shown in his images, and they appear to be very bland and mundane. They all have a similar yellow brown colour in them too.

Henry Wessel Jr. - He did not include people in his photographs either, possible to draw away any distractions to the structures, which are the main subject of the group. His photographs, like with Shore's were bleak and mundane.

To sum up, the key features which can be found in the works of the New Topographics group are mundane and bleak photographs of man altered landscapes, carefully composed images, black and white the majority of the time and little or no people.