Scribd Logo
Încărcați

Bine ați venit la Scribd!

  • Topographics Essay

    Încărcat de

    Stephen Connolly
    8 vizualizări6 pagini
    American Topographics - Landscape photography by Adam, Baltz, Deal

    Drepturi de autor

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Formate disponibile

    PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd

    Vi se pare util acest document?

    Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

    Raportați acest document
    American Topographics - Landscape photography by Adam, Baltz, Deal

    Drepturi de autor:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Descărcați ca PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd
    Indicator pentru conținut neadecvat
    8 vizualizări6 pagini

    Topographics Essay

    Încărcat de

    Stephen Connolly
    American Topographics - Landscape photography by Adam, Baltz, Deal

    Drepturi de autor:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Descărcați ca PDF sau citiți online pe Scribd
    Indicator pentru conținut neadecvat
    din 6
    AMERICAN TOPOGRAPHICS Of the various genres assigned tothe plurality of contemporary ‘American photographicactivity, social documentary and landscape are the two areas in which the majority of photographers are most avidly ‘engaged. The attitude toward American society indicated by Robert Frank with the publication of The Americans in the fities proves exemplary, and subsequent social documentary photographers adhered tothe principle of expressing an emotional response toward the worl, Similary, the traditon of American landscape protography, ‘as exemplified by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams, wesbased on the ‘notion of eliciting an emotional commitment toward the sublime. The ‘American landscape became "an Emersonian metaphor for the Romantic consciousness that creates itself in the course ofits perceptions, andin doing so gets tothe divine source ofall creation”. \When the photographs of Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Joe Dea} were first shown together with other American photographic artists under the collective tite New Topographics at George Eastman House in 1975, anew sensibilty was detected amongst the energent ‘generation of American photographers. This sensibilty resided in the appearance of the photographs that, to many cities, belied alack of ‘emotional commitment on behalf of the photographerstoward their subject mater, Further, since the photographs appeared to ‘encompass both traditional landscape and man-made constructions, ‘Ough nearly always excluding people, it was dificult locate the work within the existing catagories. It ssemed that fortis new {generation of photographers, seriousness and credibilty required an appropriation of architectural imagery to landscape phctography, though without iting into either genre as they had hitherto existed Throughout the critical allegations of coolness, ofstance, banality and even anti-photography, aproblem emerged in reading crretrieving the work of these photographers. ‘The definition of topographic from Websters New Twentietn Century Dictionary is “the detailed and accurate description of «particular place, city, town, district, state, parish or tact of land”. Accordingly each photographer records some aspect ofthe envirormentin which he places himself. Joe Deal photographs from the hillsand elevated vantage points of California and looks down and across the details of houses, roads, rocks, fields etc. Robert Adams works erally from the Missour to the Pacific, where evidence of man is seenin relation to large expanses ot land and sky. Lewis Baliz moves from distant landscape views of anew city, toclose-upinspections ofthe buildings themselves, And so on, Whal emerges from this activity are ‘sequences of photographs that describe the way man has established himself within the environment, specifically the Wester» States of ‘America, the old frontiers that produced a legacy of fact and myth nique to the American people. ‘The development of photography and the recording of the American Western landscape during the nineteenth century coincided with a {growing interest in natural history and scientific theory. The introduction ofthe wet collodion glass plate enabled photographers to reproduce exceptionally detalad pictures of assertive scale, often employing gigantic cameras especially constructed to do lustice both tothe magnitude and complexity oftheir landscape subjects and tothe prevalent philosophic and religious ideals. Soon after Darwin's writing ‘on the origin ofthe species, publisned in 1859, the geologist Louis ‘Agassiz, a student of Alexander von Humbot, itt Europe to ‘commence lecturing at Harvard, Ouring1883 the scientist Clarence king attended Agassiz's lectures and formulated the theory of ccatastrophism which, wit its deeply sociorelgious implications, was based on the premise thalthe earth was subject to sudden and violent {geological upheavals. For King, tne proof of the Creator was nature ‘sel; the form, shape and structure of nature were universal symbols ‘of God, and the harmony of nature's forms was the manifestation of a divine and ilimitable intellect. When King employed Timothy Sullivan as photographer on the Fortieth Paraliel Survey of 1867, in ‘an attempt to gather visual evidence forthe Universalist theary, the photographs were meant as didactic ilustrations of recent violence that King thought would be effaced by a new Eden, ‘The photographs in their verisimiltude provided for the convergence of science, theology and ar in post-Civil War America and were ‘greatly admired by their contemporaries. They established a landscape genre in photography that nits transparency was most conducive to the revelation ofthe magnificent, natural forms of the West. But itwas essentially their opacity, the abilty to convey the philosophical intentions of their authors, that interestedlater American photographers, Whilst the theoretical ideas of these photographers ‘elected the pervading social thinking ofthe time; exactitude, religion, adventure; by the turn of the century artists, perhaps overwhelmed by the manifestation of American economic expansion began utlsing hat opacity as an expression of individual aspirations, \Wrting about the photograph The Steerage, which he made in 1907, Alfred Stieglitz outlined a particular sensiilty which pointed toward a reading of the photograph as a psychological metaphor. “I saw shapes related to each other. | saw a picture of shapes and underlying that ofthe feeling | had about lfe.. Rembrandt came into ‘my mind and | wondered would he have felt as | was feeling. for here would be apicture based on related shapes andon the deepest human feeling, a step in my own evolution, a spontaneous discovery."= ‘The move toward symbolism that Stieglitz advocated had been expressed by the followers of Madame Blavatsky and the school of ‘Theosophy. This movement, which had already influenced Stieglitz through the work of Maurice Maeterinck, believed in a Patonic notion of realty, which held that somewhere there ex'sted an ultimate idea of reality, which could be communicated through form in Ar. Wassily Kandinsky, in his manifesto Conceming the Spirtual in Ar futher declared that artists could exoress thelr inner needs through abstraction. By the time that Stieglitz made his sequence of photographs Equivalents in tre nineteen-twenties this abstraction through the use of metaphorwas complete, even othe point of equating photographs with music. Following from the ideas of Stieglitz, Minor White developed his own notion of Equivalence and fonnulated various ‘levels of ‘consciousness’ that were atinable through looking al photographs: “When any photograph functions fora given person as an Equivalent we can say that a that moment and for that person the photograph acts as a symbol or plays the role ofametaphor for something thatis beyond the subject photographed."* Hore White recalls Jung's hypothesis of the archetypal symbol, Jung hela that in certain types of at there are present archetypal images 10 which viewers respond because they str up residual experiences of the same kind which have occured to mankind for so long that they have been passed on to each generation in he structure ofthe brain, “The danger here is to confuse the truly archetypal image andthe image that has been so continually played upon by the media, thatities atthe ro9ts of our experience of deciphering the codes of mass culture. It was this trap that Minor White slipped into, notaby with the photographs assembled in Gctave of Prayer. At that point cliche and archetype became confused, and the archetypes that nad been ‘appropriated by the media info the realm of kitsch, lead both cliche and archetype to become synonymous. ‘The vertical dimension of metaphor advocated by Stieglitz and White was in a strict relationship to he consciousness ofthe photographer. It was used to communicate an emotion or psychological state held by the photographer through the photograph tothe viewer. This method Of internalisation exercised z large infuence within American photography, developing alengside ideas linked to psychoanalysis and reiterated amongst a generation of poets and writs, More important, it established a method of reading or retrieving jphotograns which emphasised the biography ofthe photographer {devoid from the complex of cultural contexts, Whet distinguishes the ‘work of Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal from their contemporaries is that they have essentialy rejected this, internalisation process, Instead, the photographic series of each of these photographers bulds nto an external metaphor, one that tells us something about the real word, “One of the things that maces the photographers in ‘New Topographics' diferent is thal they are not only not involved in cultural problem solving, out they are refusing tobe involved in personal problem solving through their photography either. "« \When Witiam Henry Jackson photographed the Garden of ne Gods In Colorado in the eighteen-eighties, ne conferred upon the rock formation a dominance within the picture that reflected his own sense of awe and respect toward the landscape. in order to give a ‘sense ofits vast scale and significance, ne positioned a human figure atts base, silhouetted against alight sky that emphasised the ‘dramatic form and texture ofthe rock. Acentury later, Robert Adams’ eatment of light with nis portrayal of the same subject, dects our aitention towards the mythical characteristics of the place, whist lluminating its modern accessibility. Adams’ photograph was made ‘at night, and the large rock formations whicn gave rise to the name Garden of tne Gods are seen as black shapes barely discernible againstthenight sky. The Gods, itwouldseem, are no longer visible, they have lost whatever hald on our consciousness they may once have held, and the garden has become, terlly, an asphalt car park. ‘Through the beam ol acar's headlights, stretcning diagonally across the lowar contre ofthe picture, we perceive the markings that direct Visitors tothe spot, as tnough the desire o experience this piace was satiated by a tourist mentally of consumption tnrough the ‘windscreen of a car. When Jackson placed the figure against the rock he was directing his contemporaries toward the vastness of nature, indicating that the American West would be a potential source of spiritual redemption as wellas a test of man’s ingenuity in establishing himsetf within te environment, Adams’ picture reveals the extent ofthat potential, not by telling us the story, but by vvisualsing the traces of human activity upon that place, Ini earlier work Prairie, The New West and Denver, Adams sought the details of suburban development around Colorado, wherehe lives. ‘Around the vast unpromising terran, flatands and prairie, ne documented signs of ite by concentrating on the exposed housing developments that had proliferated aver the last twent along the easter slope of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The reductive style of the pictures, whilst alluding to aspects of Minimalism, was an attempt to relate the inhabited regions tothe praiies and ‘mountains surrounding them, giving each equal emphasis. Thismeant that in open country the traces of lf, which at first glance seemed slight, revealed themselves in abundance through slow, careful ‘scrutiny ofthe photographs. ‘The intense noon light that pervades Colorado was utlsed by Adams ‘as an integral part of The New West. Since his intention was to show the details of man's settlement on the land, in order to say something about the world out there, and not merely his own psychological state within that place, a major aspect of the work was to retain this intense light in the appearance ofthe prints. With this recognition we gain an understanding ofthe life of settlers in the West. Enhanced by the ssquare format, the photograpis have a static quality, in which people are seen behind the artifacts they have created or inside buildings, Under bleached white skies, ‘The new work, From the Missouri West, proceeds almost as ajourney, {rom the shores of the Missouri to the Pacific coast, and establishes & redefinition ofthe landscapes seen by the pioneer photogaphers, ‘Adame’ views locate us within vast spaces, often trom elevated viewpoints, and his camerarezords in precise detal the naturalterrain. Yet within each view, man's imposition on the lands shown through the accumulation of evidence. In one picture we see the pitted, scrub~ Covered hills receding into the distance. Across the intricate detal of jagged rock and bush we note the gradual erosion ofthe hills made evident by the subsiding rocks, whilstto the eft homesteads nestle or the promontory overiooking the canyon. Although these houses ‘appear to be isolated, away from the city the tile dispels this notion — "Near Lyons, Colorado ~ indicating a space outside ofthe photograph, a Continuous landscape, constantly unfolding, These photographs ‘consistently reveal the marksof an absent presence, as in Quarried ‘mesa top, Pueblo County, Colorado, where dit track drivers have lft behind a network of tyre marks. Again in South from Rocky Flats, Jefferson County, Colorado, Adams has positioned his camera to ‘show a foreground of curved lyre tracks echoing the bend ofthe road to the right of the picture, Everywhere the evidence of roadsis to be found, whether as thin lines surrounding the mountains ~ Clear cutand burned, gast of Arch Cape, Oregon ~ or as clearings before construction - Development Road through Cedars, Pueblo County, Colorado — accessibility is always of major concern, ‘The remorseless appropriation ofthe land continually teste man's ability to stabilise the forces ofnature, The signs ofthis activity seem to ‘manifest themselves everywrere, inacountry wnere the only truly wild places are those that society has deemed as ‘natural wilderness’. Yet ami the development of suburbs, the construction of highways and the industry of fut production and forestry, Adams photographs seem to question this approp ation, asf fora while this process was held in abeyance. By carefuly selecting the moment of exposure, the pictures allow us to consider what sunlight and shadow reveal and ‘conceal. n the two photogaphs, Northeast from Flagstaff Mountain, Boulder County, Colorado, and On top of Flagstaff Mountain, Boulder County, Colorado, we look down from the mountain and across the lowlands. The distant horizon seems lost in haze and the city merges with the landscape into the grey tone of the sky. By contrast the light reveals a wealth of detail inthe hil, whilst deep shadow almost ‘obscures the loop of road atthe base of the mountain One etect of these pictures could be to make us feel isolated, on the Periphery of cities or human zctvity, and this is perhaps the best vantage point for assimilating what we have done. And yet the photographs, since they show areas not unlike those with which we are familia, the penumbra of westernised landscape, tend to dispel the estrangement thet we feel when confronted with images depicting the ‘more grandiose aspects ofthe natural world. The indication is not of a sublime redemption, but that perhaps now our sights have been lowered, that Americans have amore realistic perspective of what can ‘and cannot be achieved on the land, ‘The landscape tradition of American photography in which Robert ‘Adams is engaged is essentially tat of nature depicted. His photographs prompt us toward a recognition thatthe ideas o!apristine nature are pertiaps no longer tenable. in this respect his work defies the limitations imposed by a definition of natural landscape. The indication is that the land and its usage isa social condition, defined by the needs of society. How that usage manifests itselland the condition under which society cultivates that environment becomes the ‘motivation behind the work of Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal respectively. In 1995 the Federal Government instigated an historical section of the Resettlement Administration, later to be known as the Farm Security ‘Administration, to document the state of America during the Depression, This involved emplaying photographers to produce pictures that would dramatise the plight of the urban poor. Working together with writers they evolved a form in which they could exaress What they recognised asa symptom, notiustofa change in individuals’ lives fromthe rural south to theccites, butratner te resetlementof an entire society, By adopting techniques which were aready being developed in European photography they directed the viewers altention toward the conditions oftheir subjects, through carefully selected viewpoints, dramatic lighting effects and the juxtaposition of ‘subject mater, in order to elicit an emotional response from th ‘audience. The books which resulted from this collaboration allowed for the contextualising of tne subject, in which both photographs and text formed a symbiotic relationshio. Whilst the emphasis of the majority of these social documentary photographers resided in an overt appeal to the emotions ofthe viewer, reflecting what they themselves felt about their subjects, the method adopted by Walker Evans invoked. rather different response. Working under the same briel that motivated other F.S.A, photographers, Evans' work was “purtanially economical, precisely measured, frontal, unemotional, dryly textured (anc) insistently factual.” Earlier i his career Evans had rejected the psychological approach of Stieglitz in favour of @ photography that would seem understated and reticent. Working with a view camera mounted at eye level, he photographed what was typical and ubiquitous, seeking a transparent ualty that would render his photographs literate and authoritative. ‘Such an uncompromising approach appeared to rrany of his contemporaries as idiosyncratic, especialy as the commitment toward ‘documentary photography changed folowing the Depression. Intime the post-war prosperity of America led pubic awareness away from the larger issues toward relatively minor ones. Through an increase in magazine publication, photojournalists, under pressure from editors to produce a consistent supply of mages related to immediate issues, reduced the epic form oftheir predecessors into a formula capable of manipulating emotional responses in any situation, Whilst Walker Evans was able to maintaina degree afindependence by instigating his own assignments at Fortune magazine, other serious photographers found the compromise necessitated by editorship and Dublic taste t00 restrictive. The inclination was to move increasingly away from public to private concerns. ‘The shift of emphasis from the documentation of American society toa personalised vision ofits effects onthe individual was most profoundly realised by the publication of The Americans by Robert Frank in 1989. His series of cisturbed views, al the more stiking because of the {general atiuence of the period, established a high individualised approach to documentary photography. (Once the onus of American photography had emerged as the pursuit ‘of personal concems, whether through the ‘equivalent’ advocated by Minor White or as witness to immediate experience invoked by Rober Frank, the relationship between the medium and external reality became increasingly tenuous. The further this process of intecorty developed, reiterating the photograph’s opacity, the more atotal abstraction was indicated. Yet the potential strengh of photography resides in its capacity to inform as well as reflect our perception of the external world, Itis within this aspect of the medium thatthe photographs of Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz and Jce Deal engage us. Vv Inhis two portfolios Maryland and Nevada, Lewis Paltz sequenced the photographs to form an extended narrative bayoncthe confines of the places depicted. Maryland begins at the juncture of natural and man ade landscape, then moves through the suburbs into the city. The process of construction and decomposition depiciedin the photographs becomes analogous tothe cycle of man’s relationship to his environment, his constant involvement wit the forces of natural ‘change. This eyelie evolution was evidenced by tre development of the sequence. From the inital process of construction on the land the ‘extension of the suburbs reveals man's attempt to appropriate the environment and cutivate the arborescent characteristics of the land, ‘This interaction escalates into the city where, aithough nature has been temporarily abated, the evidence indicated through the photographs is ‘of the natural process beginning to reassert itself. Inthe Nevada series, Baltz concentrated on the prolteration of new housing within the shelter of surrounding mountains. First viewed through @ shimmering naze on the horizon, the town is then explored ‘torn within its boundaries. Then moving nto the mountains, the photographs direct out attention toward the relationship between open ‘Space and urbanisation. Seen from adistance the man-made structures take on the appearance of oases, whilst detailed inspection indicates the extent of man's consumption ofthe land, "conceived in expedience”, that betrays a total lack of sympathy with the environment. ‘The central theme underlying the Marylandand Nevada series, as with allof Baltz's work, is the way in which Americans now lve, especially the conditions and environmentin which they build their homes. Attention to the vernacular of these buildings testifesto the aspirations Of investors and planners, whilst the details reveal the quality ofthe ‘owners’ ife-styles. The growth of suburbials inparta consequence of the desir tolive in peacetul, healthy surroundings, yetby definition, to retain economic and cultural roots within the city. These links are usually te result of lang and complex interelationships, evolving through time and the changing needs of people. Once these roots are severed, development takes place within a cultural vacuum and enhances a tourist mentality which, as Dean MeCannell remarks: ‘the only unit of social organisation in the modern world thats both sutfused with cultural imagery and absolutely detached trom surrounding culture” ® The re-emergence of Park City, Utah as a second-home development and sking resort hasits economic base in ‘snow, and a culture of facilitated pleasure, Originally founded inthe late eighteen-sintos, Park City grew as a mining town when deposits of silver were discovered in the surrounding Wasatch mountains. In 1898 twas largely destroyed by fire and though rebuilt, faced a steady decline as the diminishing returns trom the mines forced the inhabitants to leave. Itseemed likely to become another western ghost town until its recreational possibilties were discovered during the sities. This marked the beginnings of economic recovery as ski runs and lifts were constructed on the mountains surrounding the town. Investors realising the potential of good skiing conditions and thousands of acres ‘of open land began planning large real-estate developments, and by 4977 Park City's second boom was underway. ‘The two and a half year period during which Baltz photographed Park City has resulted in a sequence which in length and complexity both incorporates and expands upon the achievements of Maryland and ‘Nevada. Whereas inthe latter works the temporal theme of the ‘sequence remained linear, Park City rejects that possibilty through a series of cycles, repetitions and cross-references. in effect, there are ‘sequences within the sequence, each exploring different aspects, within the overall conception of the work. “The first two views from Masonic Hl function as establishing shots, showing “landscape-as-real-estate", the topography of Park City to bbe explored throughout the sequence. The work can then be divided into three sectiong; the landscape both old and new, the relationship of the new developments to that landscape, and finaly the interiors. Following the two elevated views are three photographs made betwoen West Sidewinder Drie and State Highway 248 ooking West, Which explore the historical aspect of Park City evident through older ruins and foundations on the ground, and the second growth trees. ‘above them on tne hil slopes, The woodland was orginally felled to allow access for mining. Now ceared lanes through the tees mark the ‘skins. Seasonal change inthe next wo photographs, Between Sidewinder Drive and State Highway 248, now looking southwest re-establishes the present. The snow packed ski runs ready for use blend into the sky area, whilst he foreground is filed with recently ‘moved heaps af earth and rubble, Here too isthe fst evidence of Construction machinery, a theme reiterated throughout the first two sections, and explicitly stated in Looking Sournwest rom State Highway 248, where horizontal vackmarks run pavalleto a pipeline and railway track, in contrast tothe undulation of the hls. These nil are then eclipsed in Between West Sidewinder Dave and State Highway 248, looking Northwest, by @heap of earth and stones that (gradually subsides through the folowing three photographs, the latter wo forming a panorama. Between West Sidewinder Drive and State Highway 248, looking West aveals a landscape dominated by scattered wastage amid the patially excavated ground. The movement ‘80 far described by the sequence has completed the etch of @ ‘compass whilst depicting tne changing seasons, thus creating the ‘context within which the remaining photographs are located, Inthe photograph Prospector Vilage, Lot 85, looking West, which instigates the middie section o Park City, everything appears ina state Cf imminent transformation, Across the foreground lie the extraneous by-products ofthe newly constructed building partial viewed on the right hand side of the photogreph, Newly planted trees and piled tur are indicative ofthe efforts to naturalise the setting. In the distance, ‘shadow obliterates one hil, whist sunlight on another outines the remaining snow on a skirun. Just as in tne frst photograph on the ‘Maryland sequence, al the elements explored throughout Park City are implied inthis photograph, ‘Maryland Idescrives alandscepe in which taces of human activity are

    S-ar putea să vă placă și