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 Typology Photography's lettering (Lettering kept outside the frame, place and date in one format throughout) 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 Typology Photography (Frontal shooting under flat overcast light, focal length and height fixed).
- Colour
- Build on #d8d4c8, #8b897b, #4c4a44 and admit one accent from #e8e8da, #8c8d82, #1d1f1d.
Where they fight
- New Topographics and Typology Photography both belong to Photography Movements, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- New Topographics Posing as neutral while choosing light and framing too carefully produces scenic photography in documentary clothes, and the change goes unread.
- Typology Photography Hanging pictures made under different light and angles turns those differences into the subject, and the variation between objects disappears.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from New Topographics (style, 1975–) and their accent from Typology Photography (style, 1959–). ## 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 Typology Photography, used sparingly - Grid presentation - Even overcast light - Strict frontality - Typification through repetition Let one material quality come from it: Frontal shooting under flat overcast light, focal length and height fixed. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #d8d4c8, carry the structure in #8b897b and #4c4a44, and let a single accent come from #8c8d82. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, rebellion, trust, technique. ## Where they fight - New Topographics and Typology Photography both belong to Photography Movements, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## 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. - Typology Photography: Hanging pictures made under different light and angles turns those differences into the subject, and the variation between objects disappears. ## 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.
- Typology Photography 1959– / Style / Photography Movements
The Bechers' method of shooting one kind of structure under identical conditions and hanging the results in a grid. Repetition under overcast light, dead-on and without people, turns individuals into types, and by way of the Düsseldorf school it became a grammar of contemporary photography.
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