About the New Topographics

The 'New Topographics' is a contemporary style of photography that emerged in the USA during the 1970s. The term derives from the 1975 exhibition at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York entitled 'New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape', in which curator William Jenkins presented works by Robert ADAMS, Lewis BALTZ, Bernd and Hilla BECHER, Joe DEAL, Frank GOHLKE, Nicholas NIXON, John SCHOTT, Stephen SHORE and Henry WESSEL. These photographers turned their attention to places and landscapes or sections of landscapes (often urban suburbs) characterized by human intervention. It was not the ideal conception of landscape, but the documentary view of an environment shaped by industry, transportation and the exploitation of nature that became the subject of a new photography critical of civilization. The approach of photographers in this genre is often conceptual.

Reception

The 'New Topographics' is generally understood as the beginning of a new photographic view of the landscape and a drastic change in US landscape photography. Until then, photographers such as Ansel ADAMS and Edward WESTON in particular had defined the ideal of modern American landscape photography, guided by the view of a landscape and nature largely untouched by man.
The impetus provided by the photographers of the 'New Topographic Movement' continues to have an impact on the current generation of photographers. Joachim BROHM, Hans-Christian SCHINK, Michael SCHMIDT, Hildegard OCHSE and Heinrich RIEBESEHL, among others, can be seen as German representatives of this movement with parts of their work. (Text created using a Wikipedia entry, retrieved on 25.01.2024)

Literature about the 'New Topographics'

  • 'New Topographics. Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape' (1975); 'New Topographics' (1999, by Paul Highman); 'New Topographics' (2013, by Britt Salvesen); 'New Topographics. Texte und Rezeption' (2013); 'Reframing the New Topographics' (2013); 'New Topographics and Tomboy. Landscape transformation and photography' (2016, by Akihito Onishi); 'New American Topographics' (2018)

About the photographers associated with and influenced by the 'New Topographics'
  • Robert ADAMS, Lewis BALTZ, Bernd and Hilla BECHER, Joe DEAL, Frank GOHLKE, Nicholas NIXON, John SCHOTT, Stephen SHORE, Henry WESSEL, Joachim BROHM, Hans-Christian SCHINK, Michael SCHMIDT, Hildegard OCHSE, Heinrich RIEBESEHL
Photo books by and with works by photographers associated with and influenced by the 'New Topographics'
  • ADAMS, Robert
    BALTZ, Lewis
    BECHER, Bernd and Hilla BECHER
    DEAL, Joe
    GOHLKE, Frank
    NIXON, Nicholas
    SCHOTT, John
    SHORE, Stephen
    WESSEL, Henry
  • BROHM, Joachim
    OCHSE, Hildegard
    RIEBESEHL, Heinrich
    SCHINK, Hans-Christian
    SCHMIDT, Michael

In 'Sea Stories', the photos by Robert ADAMS describe the cycles of nature with a new naturalism. It contents a sequence of three visual narratives: among alder and maple trees, along the beachand back through meadows and what remains of the inland forest
0,00 € * Weight 0.7 kg
HC with dust jacket, 24,5 x 26 x 2 cm., 96 pp., 48 b/w ills., English
35,00 € *
First published in 1974, Robert ADAMS' photobook 'The New West' is now considered a photobook classic, along with 'American Photographs' by Walker EVANS and 'The Americans' by Robert FRANK as seminal photobooks exploring American culture and society.
from 198,00 € Weight 1 kg
The photographs in 'First Pictures' by Joel STERNFELD were taken at a time when color photography had not yet been able to assert itself against the B/W tradition. They make this photo volume a revelation also in the history of contemporary photography.
48,00 € *
The book 'Turning Back' by Robert ADAMS documents and observes the results of greed so unrestrained that they are indistinguishable from those of nihilism. It reflects what was lost, what is retained, and what we value as a people with a common history.
58,00 € Weight 1.9 kg
SC in plastic slipcase, 29 x 29 x 2 cm., 112 pp., color & b/w ills., English
40,00 € *
'A Road Trip Journal' is a complete reproduction of the journal that Stephen SHORE made on his month-long tour in 1973 when he began work on his 'Uncommon Places' project. With postcards and reproductions that he made himself and distributed on his trip.
275,00 € * Weight 3.7 kg
Slipcased HC, 30,5 x 38 x 2 cm. (12 x 15 in.), 64 pp., 54 duotone b/w ills., text language: English, Ltd. to 350 numbered copies
248,00 € *
ORIGINALLY SEALED! German-languaged 'Retrospective'-catalog contains important text contributions to the understanding of the work of prominent photographer Stephen SHORE, an extensive interview with David Campany, a complete bibliography and a chronology
148,00 € * Weight 2.3 kg
Stephen SHORE's out-of-print photo volume 'Winslow Arizona' includes a selection of images he presented during contemporary artist Doug Aitken's 'Station to Station' project, which filmed a trans-American journey by train.
from 68,00 € Weight 0.7 kg
The focus of the catalog illuminating the early phase of the BECHER school is on the mutual influences between the image concepts emerging in Düsseldorf and the innovations of the 'New-Color Photography' and the 'New Topographics' movement in the U.S..
198,00 € Weight 1.8 kg
This edition contains b/w photos taken between 1973 and 1991, a six-page interview with as well as a two-page biography. It was published in the 'Photographers at Work' series by the American Smithsonian Institute - like EGGLESTON's 'Horses and Dogs'.
0,00 € *
The compendium includes many international photographers of diff. groups & schools of 20th century (New Vision, Straight Photography, New Topographics, New Color, Becher School), collected by Gallery Kicken in Berlin to celebrate their 30's birthday.
58,00 € *
Traffic/Sunset Park/Continental Divide' by Henry WESSEL presents three independent bodies of work by the photographer, each being a precise sequence arranged to give the viewer the experience of what it felt like to pass through the territory described.
0,00 € *
Linen bound HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 27 x 22 x 2 cm., 136 pp., 76 b/w ills., bilingual texts: German / English
0,00 € *
A primer for understanding photographs. 'The Nature of Photographs' by Stephen SHORE is based on his teaching at Bard College. It is an indispensable tool for students, teachers & anyone who wants to take better pictures or learn to look more consciously.
0,00 €
This retrospective photo volume about American photographer Henry WESSEL tracks his contribution to the 'New Topographics Movement' of the 1970s and continues through more than thirty years of incisive observations on the American social landscape.
0,00 € *
HC with dust jacket, 23,5 x 28 x 3 cm., (with works by Edouard BALDUS, Mathew BRADY, Louis DE CLERCQ, Maxime DU CAMP, Roger FENTON, Jean-Baptiste FRENET, Charles HUGO und David Octavius HÜGEL, Robert ADAMSON, Gustave LE GRAY and many more
0,00 € *
In 'Selected Works, 1973-1981', fifteen photographers, curators & authors - David Campany, Paul GRAHAM, Guido GUIDI, Takashi HOMMA, Hans U. Obrist, Ed RUSCHA, Britt Salvesen, Taryn SIMON, Thomas STRUTH - describe the work of Stephen SHORE she amazes why.
120,00 € Weight 2.8 kg
'Hitchhike' by Henry WESSEL documents his westward journey from the grassy farmlands in the Midwest to the wide, open, dusty landscape further west. The sequences draw from his archive and includes images of barns, gas stations, traveling salesmen....
55,00 € *
HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 30 x 21,5 x 1,5 cm., 134 pp., color ills., multilingual text;: English / French / German
178,00 € *
The corpus of his work - following on from Walker EVANS' and Robert FRANK's epic experiences of crossing America - influenced photographers such as Martin PARR and Bernd & Hilla BECHER, who in turn introduced a new generation of students to SHORE's work.
0,00 € *
Three linen bound HCs with dust jacket, 25 x 30 x 8 cm., 640 pp., b/w ills., text language: English
0,00 € *
Two slipcased Pbs. (no dust jacket, as issued), 24 x 33 x 4 cm., 184 pp., color ills., English
58,00 € *
In this late photo book photographer Robert ADAMS allows us to take a look at his very personal surroundings. The b/w photographs gathered here can hardly be called special, but this calm view onto the private sphere makes it extraordinarily interesting.
0,00 € *
'Incident' is a photo volume compiled by Henry WESSEL from 27 previously unpublished photographs. Every incident is recorded decisively and concisely with the aesthetic immediacy of a snapshot. 'As mysterious as a clearly described fact.' (© WINOGRAND)
0,00 € *
The unusual 'PBM_Catalog Box' contains leporellos, brochures and posters for the 33 exhibitions and projects shown during the PhotoBookMuseum pop-up in Cologne. The shape of the box alludes to the exhibitions shown in traditional shipping containers.
55,00 € * Weight 1 kg
Photo volume 'When it changed' is about climate change. Future generations will wonder what our generation did when it began. That's why Joel STERNFELD traveled to Montreal in 2005 to portray the participants of the eleventh UN Climate Change Conference.
25,00 € * Weight 0.5 kg
A collection of various photo book titles by the US-american photographer Robert ADAMS (b.1937). The titles listed in this set are out of print and / or signed. This complete offer can include various editions of the same title.
1.480,00 € *
Re-edit 2011, HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 32 x 24,5 x 2,5 cm., 128 pp., 12 color & 72 tritone ills., text language: English
from 58,00 € Weight 1.5 kg
In black-and-white photo volume 'Waikiki', the American New Topographic photographer Henry WESSEL documents the recreational behavior of Americans in the 1970s and 1980s as well as the encroachment on nature using the example of the beach on Honolulu.
58,00 € *
HC with dust jacket, 20,5 x 25,5 x 1 cm., 72 pp., b/w ills., text language: English
39,00 € *
Photo book 'On This Site. Landscape in Memoriam' by Joel STERNFELD contains photos of places associated with tragedy from the perspective of recognizability. The understanding of landscape photography is inevitably limited and full of misinterpretations.
48,00 € * Weight 1.1 kg
Handmade pb. (no dust jacket, as issued), 15 x 21 x 0,5 cm., 48 pp., 35 color ills., deutsch-sprachiger Text - GERMAN TEXT ONLY! Ltd. to 30 copies
0,00 € *
The photo book 'Walk About/Man Alone/Botanical Census' by photographer Henry WESSEL, presents three independent bodies of his work from the past five decades. Each is a precise sequence recreating the experience of passing through the territory described.
65,00 € *
Pb. (no dust jacket, as issued), 21 x 24 x 1,5 cm., 106 pp., b/w ills., text language: English
28,00 €
In the volume 'Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape', Stephen SHORE revisits the ambitions of the 1975 'New Topographics' by taking a new bird's eye view of the relationship between the natural and the man-made in the American landscape.
78,00 € * Weight 1.4 kg
The reissue of photo volume 'Cottonwoods' by Robert ADAMS was originally published in paperback by Smithsonian in 1994 as part of the 'Photographers at Work' series. For the now expanded edition, further recordings from the series at that time were taken.
45,00 € * Weight 0.9 kg
Carefully edited by Robert ADAMS himself, the volume 'What Can We Believe Where? Photographs of the American West' contains a sequence of over 100 B&W photographs that reveal his concern for man's growing tragic relationship with the natural environment.
0,00 € * Weight 0.5 kg
'Message from the Exterior' by landscape photographer Mark RUWEDEL explores in a humorous way ruins and remains of failed attempts to live in the harsh environments of the desert region east of Los Angeles, in small, often eccentric and somewhat lost huts
55,00 € *
Hardcover with foil stamped type, 24 x 26 cm., 88 pp., 54 tritone b/w ills., bilingual text: German / English
38,00 € *
HC with dust jacket, 35 x 28 x 3 cm., 180 pp., b/w ills., text language: English
0,00 € *
Slipcased HC, 30,5 x 38 x 2 cm. (12 x 15 in.) 60 pp., 47 duotone b/w ills., text language: English, Ltd. to 350 numbered copies
248,00 € *
The photo volume 'Oxbow Archive' by Joel STERNFELD contains seventy seven color frames of a flat, nondescript corn and potato field, symbolizing the impact of human consumption on nature. A political and cultural echo of 'Sweet Earth' and 'As it changed'.
0,00 € *
10 x HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 37,5 x 36 x 20 cm., 964 pp., b/w ills., English
0,00 € *
HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 26,5 x 24,5 x 3 cm., 330 pp., color & b/w ills., English
70,00 € * Weight 2 kg
Revised edition of the seminal 'American Prospects' by Joel STERNFELD returns to the format of the original 1987 edition. With 12 new images, most of which have never been published before - landscape portraits that illustrate the human condition in USA.
0,00 € * Weight 1.2 kg
Pb. with dust jacket, 24,5 x 19 x 1 cm., 80 pp., color ills., text language: English
65,00 € * Weight 0.6 kg
Slipcased DVD, region code: 2 / PAL, 16:9, 50 min., English
19,95 € *
Re-edit, HC (with dust jacket) in slipcase, 29 x 28 cm., 96 pp., 51 b/w ills., bilingual text: German / English
198,00 € Weight 1.3 kg