Landscape photography somewhat differently!

Our view of landscapes and what they are has changed.
Cairo, for example, is a cityscape that has nothing to do with the surrounding landscapes. There we find large deserts. Are these deserts also landscapes or maybe just those consisting of mountains and valleys with rivers and lakes? What would be your definition of a landscape?

We humans change landscapes and that’s why buildings, fences and roads are now part of our landscapes.
And so, in the 1970s, photographers began to photograph these landscapes that had been changed by humans. Just as they had previously „portrayed“ green landscapes.

„New topographic Movement“ emerged as a style of photography!

Click on the photo to see more pictures.

Cairo was unlike anything I had seen before!

4 weeks we cycled with our bikes through Cairo and found out about the differences within the quarters of the city.
To document all this madness we needed a different way of approaching the city.
Rational, factual with a certain distance to the object, but not without inner compassion – this is how I tried to approach my task. Cairo does not need overemotionalization, Cairo is already pure emotion. So this certain objectivity in photography was just right.

Wikipedia doesn’t say to much to this genre, but at least a short note about some of the most famous New Topographic Movement Photographers Lewis Balz and Stephen Shore.

The influence of the New Topographics movement, however, has been pervasive. You can detect it for example in the work of Andreas Gursky.

Seeing and documenting landscapes like a stage is what this style is all about.
And these landscapes should clearly be shaped by human hands.

Maybe for some of your next Photo excursion this is giving you some inspiration.
If you like to do a tour with me just send an e-Mail. Berlin has a lot to offer for this kind of photography, subjects that were not by any means extraordinary. We can photograph motels, suburban sprawl, industrial sites, places few people found beautiful or interesting. We actively defied the conventions of romantic, sublime landscape photography. “Some people will find it unutterably boring, some people will not believe we were serious, taking pictures of this stuff.

Let’s do some boring stuff: New Topographic Movement 🙂

You want to read some more about our Tripp in Cairo? Sitzgelegenheiten auf den Straßen Kairos!

Or you want to see some more of my pictures about New Topographic Movement:  New Topographics.