New Topographics
A 1975 exhibition and the approach it named, photographing the altered landscape — suburbs, industrial parks, car parks — in a deliberately neutral manner.
In depth
Subtitled 'Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape', the show rejected the romantic wilderness tradition in favour of flat light, frontal framing and apparently uninflected description of ordinary built environments. Its detached manner became one of the dominant modes of art photography for the following half-century.
Examples in practice
A tract house photographed frontally in flat midday light, without drama, presented as a factual record.