# New Topographics

> The land as people have changed it: tract houses, industrial parks, motels, parking lots, grain elevators and the edges of towns, photographed level and from a middle or far distance, square-on or along a low horizon, in plain high sun or overcast light. Everything is sharp and the prints are straight, small and mostly black and white. Nothing is dramatised and the single frame shows no opinion; the meaning builds in the series and the book. The curator called it neutral, a matter of stylistic anonymity.

- Period: 1970–present
- Kind: Documentary & reportage
- Also called: Man-altered landscape photography, topographic photography
- Page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/new-topographics/

## How the look is made

- Photograph the ordinary built landscape at the edge of town, not the sublime or the picturesque one.
- Stand back with the camera level and the verticals vertical; frame square-on, or along a low, straight horizon.
- Use plain daylight, high sun or overcast, and keep everything sharp so that no detail becomes the subject.
- Leave people out or small; show what they built and left.
- Print straight and modestly, and let the series carry the argument.

## How it is lit

- High midday sun or bright haze, with short shadows on walls and roads.
- An overcast sky that evens out every surface.
- No flash or added light.

### A light plan from its choices (schematic)

- Key: the sun, about 45° to the camera’s left, high, hard.

## Camera settings

28–55 mm · f/8–f/64 · 1/125–1 s · ISO 6–400 (on 8x10), inferred. Formats are documented: Baltz's Leica on ASA 6 microfilm on a tripod, Adams's Rolleiflex then Pentax 6×7, Nixon's and Shore's 8×10, the Bechers' 13×18 cm Plaubel at ASA 25 for 10 s–1 min. Normal lenses, f/8 on 35 mm to f/64 on 8×10 and most shutter speeds are inferred.

## Directing people

Usually no one is in the frame. When people appear they are small and far off, seen whole from a distance: walking across a lot, standing in a yard or getting into a car, going about their business without noticing the camera, never posed, gesturing or looking for the lens.

## Styling

Nothing is styled, moved or tidied: tract houses, yards, parking lots, industrial units and roadsides are shown exactly as built and left, with raw earth, tyre tracks, young trees and litter; anyone who appears wears their own everyday clothes.

## Before you shoot it

Several of the photographers are living artists: never prompt by their names or recreate their pictures. A generated view must not be presented as a survey or record of a real place.

## Photographs

- Lewis Baltz, Irvine, 1971. Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Lewis Baltz. In copyright. In copyright, linked: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/38784
- Frank Gohlke, Grain Elevators, Series II, Belmond, Iowa, 1972. Art Institute of Chicago, gift of David and Reva Logan. In copyright. In copyright, linked: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/118933
- Nicholas Nixon, View North from the Prudential Building, Boston, 1975. Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Robert A. Taub. In copyright. In copyright, linked: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/212178
- Joe Deal, Untitled (Boulder City), 1974. Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Robert A. Taub. In copyright. In copyright, linked: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/212087

## Sources

- New Topographics, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Topographics (title, venue, October 1975 – February 1976, curator William Jenkins, the ten photographers and their subjects, 168 prints, Shore the only colour, formats per photographer, Ruscha's books, Atget, Evans, O'Sullivan and Jackson as influences, Jenkins's 'neutral' and 'stylistic anonymity', 2009 restaging and tour)
- Robert Adams (photographer), Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Adams_(photographer) (The New West, 1974; Denver, 1977; What We Bought, 1970–1974)
- Lewis Baltz, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Baltz (The New Industrial Parks near Irvine, 1974; monochrome, minimalist photographs of suburban landscapes and industrial parks)
- Lewis Baltz, Corona del Mar, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/200882 (the Prototype Works: 'subarchitecture', minimalist forms, a print nearly devoid of shadows)
- Lewis Baltz, Irvine, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/38784 (1971 print, 15.2 × 22.6 cm)
- Frank Gohlke, Grain Elevators, Series II, Belmond, Iowa, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/118933 (1972, square print)
- Nicholas Nixon, View North from the Prudential Building, Boston, Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/212178 (1975, 8×10 print)
- Robert Adams, New Housing, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/259841 (1968 print, 14.7 × 15.2 cm: small, near-square prints)
- Jeff Rian, Last interview of Lewis Baltz with Jeff Rian, L'Oeil de la Photographie, 2015: https://loeildelaphotographie.com/en/last-interview-of-lewis-baltz-with-jeff-rian/ ('I used a Rolleiflex or a Leica. Everything I shot until about 1980 was simple 35mm film'; 'I used Agfa paper and 35mm microfilm'; 'If the average film was ASA 125, it was ASA 6, which means you had to use it on a tripod, outdoors, on a sunny day'; lenses not sharp 'until F5.6 or -8'; five bracketed exposures per subject; prints about 7 × 9 in)
- Lewis Baltz and David Campany in Conversation, davidcampany.com: https://davidcampany.com/lewis-baltz-david-campany-conversation/ (asked whether 'the industrial parks, or maybe all your photographs up to that point' were shot on 35 mm and very slow film: 'They were all shot on a Leica using microfilm developed for continuous tone', at 'really low ASA, like five or seven? Yep.')
- Tod Papageorge, Robert Adams: The Missing Criticism, reposted by American Suburb X, July 2011: https://americansuburbx.com/2011/07/robert-adams-missing-criticism-what-we.html (from 1968 a hand-held Rolleiflex making 2¼-inch square negatives; from 1973 a Pentax 6 × 7 cm reflex camera 'became his workhorse', with a Hasselblad for interiors; a tripod-mounted view camera for White Churches of the Plains and Hispanic Colorado; nearly five hundred rolls for the Denver project)
- View of Battery Plaza, New York City, from the series City Views (1975–1976), Fundación MAPFRE collections: https://www.fundacionmapfre.org/en/art-and-culture/collections/nicholas-nixon/city-views-1975-1976/view-of-battery-plaza-new-york-city/ (after moving to Brookline near Boston in 1974, 'Nixon settled on an 8-x-10-inch view camera'; the print needs no further magnification)
- Stephen Shore, Lapis Press release for New York, 1974 (2023): https://lapispress.com/usr/library/documents/main/artists/59/shorepressrelease.pdf ('I spent the summer of 1974 traveling across America, photographing with an 8 x 10 view camera')
- Bernd and Hilla Becher, Wikipedia, citing Jeff L. Rosenheim, Bernd & Hilla Becher (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_and_Hilla_Becher (a 6×9 cm camera, then after 1961 mostly a Plaubel Peco 13×18 cm monorail camera; lenses from 90 mm to 600 mm; glass plates, then 25 ASA sheet film around 1970; usually two exposures per view, 'from 10 seconds to a minute'; overcast days or a blue filter)
- New Topographics, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Topographics (about half the photographers used 8×10 view cameras; Deal and Gohlke square medium format; Baltz and Wessel 35 mm)

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From Lumogeny (https://lumogeny.com/), a service of Van Riel Online Services. The shoot sheet for your own camera, lenses and lights is on the page: https://lumogeny.com/styles/new-topographics/#sheet