New Topographics

Photography: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, Henry Wessel Jr.

Text: Anthony Bannon, Alison Nordström, Britt Salvesen

Design: Michael Mack, Joby Ellis

2009 (3^rd ed. 2013)

Book of the month December 2025

The cover shows no photograph, only the title and a list of names. The title New Topographics refers to New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, a groundbreaking exhibition in 1975 at the George Eastman House in Rochester, and to the book of the same name..

The photographers Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel Jr. were selected at the time by curator William Jenkins for their vision of landscape photography. They no longer wished to capture the idyll of untouched nature. Instead, they focused on traces of human activity, showing parking lots, residential areas, and roads. So they moved to reality.

In 2009 this reissue was published by Steidl Publishers in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography (University of Arizona) and the George Eastman House (Rochester). It was released in honor of the traveling exhibition that was shown in 2011 at the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.

At the front of the book is an interview with two visitors. The woman finds the photographs unattractive (too ordinary, even ugly in her view). The man finds them interesting (because of their recognizability).

The book contains Britt Salvesen’s essay ‘New Topographics’ and installation views of the 1975 exhibition. This is followed by Alison Nordström’s essay ‘After New: Thinking about New Topographics from 1975 to the Present’, and then full-page photographs by the participating photographers—most in black and white, except Stephen Shore’s, which are in color.

Remarkably, a reproduction of the original edition is included, with text by curator William Jenkins. That book (designed by one of the exhibitors, Joe Deal) contained only 48 pages and was almost square (24.4 × 22.8 cm). The 2009 edition (designed by Michael Mack and Joby Ellis) is larger, rectangular (landscape format, 30 cm wide × 24.5 cm high), and much thicker: 304 pages. It includes more photographs per participant.

The original book had worldwide influence. In the Netherlands, it impacted photographers such as Hans Aarsman, Cary Markerink, and Theo Baart. They too documented the human-shaped landscape, sometimes to the point of banality. Yet it was also a time document and a statement: our environment.

Hans Bol also states that he was influenced by New Topographics. For 40 years he has been photographing the marble-mining landscape at Carrara. At first he was captivated by the beautiful structures created in the quarries, but over time he focused more and more on the destructive side of marble extraction on the landscape. His exhibition SKIN – SLITS | CUTS | RELICS is on view until February 28, 2026 at the Pennings Foundation.

Two books were published alongside the exhibition: SKIN (with introductory text by Pim Hoff) and SLITS | CUTS | RELICS (with introductory text by Frits Gierstberg). They are for sale in the PF Shop.

The book New Topographics is available for consultation in the PF library.