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 Topographics: Hold the horizon near the middle and shoot subjects square on at equal distance
- Type
- Set in New Topographics's manner (Captions carry place and date only, in one fixed form, with no comment), and let Snapshot Aesthetic's lettering (No type, or at most a scrawl on the back of a print) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in New Topographics's material (Even overcast light, deep focus, processing that never lifts saturation); bring in exactly one thing from Snapshot Aesthetic (Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected).
- Colour
- Build on #d8d4c8, #8b897b, #4c4a44 and admit one accent from #e3eee6, #979b71, #16120e.
Where they fight
- New Topographics and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 87 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- New Topographics Posing as neutral while choosing light and framing too carefully produces scenic photography in documentary clothes, and the change goes unread.
- Snapshot Aesthetic The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from New Topographics (style, 1975–) and their accent from Snapshot Aesthetic (style, 1888– / 1960s art adoption). ## What to make Make the kind of thing New Topographics exists for: recording how a city edge or a graded site changes, year after year, under identical conditions, or reports and exhibitions that present development as it is, without staging. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from New Topographics - Empty suburbs - Frontality - Dry color - Man-altered landscape Composition: Hold the horizon near the middle and shoot subjects square on at equal distance. Type and lettering: Captions carry place and date only, in one fixed form, with no comment. ## Accent comes from Snapshot Aesthetic, used sparingly - Tilted framing - Subjects cut by the frame - Direct flash - Album intimacy Let one material quality come from it: Direct flash with its hard shadow, color left uncorrected. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #d8d4c8, carry the structure in #8b897b and #4c4a44, and let a single accent come from #979b71. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, rebellion, trust, intimacy, nostalgia. ## Where they fight - New Topographics and Snapshot Aesthetic stand roughly 87 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle. ## What goes wrong - New Topographics: Posing as neutral while choosing light and framing too carefully produces scenic photography in documentary clothes, and the change goes unread. - Snapshot Aesthetic: The harder amateurism is staged, the more it shows, and the absence of real time spent with the subject becomes the only thing visible. ## 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 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.
- Snapshot Aesthetic 1888– / 1960s art adoption / Style / Photographic Genres
An aesthetic that takes the failures of amateur photography since Kodak, the tilted horizon, the head cut off at the edge, the flatness of the flash, and claims them on purpose. The intimacy of the family album became a grammar for art photography from Winogrand to Goldin.
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