Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow New Color Photography: Tilt off horizontal and push the subject toward an edge
- Type
- Set in New Color Photography's manner (Captions carry only place and year, never explanation), and let New Topographics's lettering (Captions carry place and date only, in one fixed form, with no comment) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in New Color Photography's material (Let one red run dense while the rest stays faded); bring in exactly one thing from New Topographics (Even overcast light, deep focus, processing that never lifts saturation).
- Colour
- Build on #ded4c2, #b31217, #1c1210 and admit one accent from #d8d4c8, #8b897b, #4c4a44.
Where they fight
- New Color Photography and New Topographics both belong to Photography Movements, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- New Color Photography Raising saturation gets mistaken for the style, so the choice of subject goes unexamined and the pictures end up loud but with no reason to look.
- New Topographics Posing as neutral while choosing light and framing too carefully produces scenic photography in documentary clothes, and the change goes unread.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from New Color Photography (style, 1976–) and their accent from New Topographics (style, 1975–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing New Color Photography exists for: advertising that shows ordinary goods and storefronts through color rather than staging, or photobooks on suburbs and small cities where the banal is the subject. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from New Color Photography - Nameless everyday scenes - Dye-transfer saturation - Casual oblique composition - The intensity of red Composition: Tilt off horizontal and push the subject toward an edge. Type and lettering: Captions carry only place and year, never explanation. ## Accent comes from New Topographics, used sparingly - Empty suburbs - Frontality - Dry color - Man-altered landscape Let one material quality come from it: Even overcast light, deep focus, processing that never lifts saturation. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ded4c2, carry the structure in #b31217 and #1c1210, and let a single accent come from #8b897b. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: intimacy, calm, rebellion, trust. ## Where they fight - New Color Photography and New Topographics both belong to Photography Movements, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - New Color Photography: Raising saturation gets mistaken for the style, so the choice of subject goes unexamined and the pictures end up loud but with no reason to look. - New Topographics: Posing as neutral while choosing light and framing too carefully produces scenic photography in documentary clothes, and the change goes unread. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- New Color Photography 1976– / Style / Photography Movements
The art photography of the everyday in color, legitimized by Eggleston's MoMA show. Dye-transfer density gave banal scenes gravity and overturned the rule that color was vulgar.
- New Topographics 1975– / Style / Photography Movements
Turns from grand natural scenery to the landscapes people have altered, recording suburbs, graded building sites and industrial zones without heat.
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