In 1975 the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, held a group show of photography titled “The New Topographics” - "Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape". The exhibit was curated by William Jenkins and consisted of 10 prints each by eight photographers. The photographs were urban landscapes - streets, buildings, warehouses, etc. and, as landscape photography, they were the esthetic opposite of the iconic nature and landscape work that had come before. They were the anti-Ansel Adams.
Reaction to the exhibit by visitors was overwhelmingly negative. As one of the photographers, Frank Gohlke, said when the show was remounted in Los Angeles in 2010 - "What I remember most clearly was that nobody liked it. I think it wouldn't be too strong to say that it was a vigorously hated show."
Looking at the images in the exhibit I realized that much of my photography would fit right in with the New Topographics aesthetic. So, in this tradition, here are my Landscapes of the Banal.
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