Typography is something I personally became interested in when I first started photographing people, but not something I have tried in a landscape context.  I think I have found it difficult to understand where to start, what is it that makes a series of landscape images interesting enough to create a typographical series. 

I have begun to understand the point that is perhaps best typified by looking at Bernd and Hilla Becher Water Towers (Lewis, 2014)  and their similar typographies, see Fig. 1.  Lewis discusses that to achieve the ‘perfect chain’ described by the Bechers, each photograph was produced following exactly the same setup (ibid.).  Any one of these images by itself would not necessarily capture the interest of most people, whereas the set, and the rigorous approach creates something that becomes transformed into something that very much captures ones interest. 

Listening to Wylie discuss his work capturing the The Maze Prison (Wylie, 2011) I was heartened by his revelation that he spent over 100 days on site failing to capture the scene in the way that he wanted.  Eventually he opened a cupboard containing the architectural plans and suddenly realised the system of the architect, and that he needed to use that system to capture his images.

This is a leap.  I understood typology as shown by the Bechers, but had not in collections that were not “simply” images all framed in the same manner.  The understanding of following a system, albeit different opens up new possibilities.

I researched Stephen Shore and his series Uncommon Places (Shore, 1973). These images represent his travels across America.  They show what might be considered mundane scenes but create a body of work that somehow captures the essence of America at the time.  Many images show huge scenes with so much information in them that one could spend a long time looking at the image, an example is shown in Fig. 2.   Essentially it is an image of a petrol station.  But the way it is captured we see two petrol stations, we see a view along the highway where we see all the shops and the signage, we see the mountains in the background.   

The images in the series are captured on a large format film camera meaning it took up to 20 minutes set up for each one (Stephen Shore: Uncommon Places | The Independent Photographer, n.d.).  This shows,  a quick glance might leave one thinking the images is a snapshot, but a longer proper study reveals the details and these are not by chance, perhaps that is the skill.

Shore himself states “To see something spectacular and recognise it as a photographic possibility is not making a very big leap. But to see something ordinary, something you’d see every day, and recognise it as a photographic possibility, that’s what I am interested in.” (Ibid.).  I think that is the skill and these images probably come closest to the type of images that I would like to be taking myself, more so than the rigorous repetition of the Bechers.

Bibliography

Lewis, E., 2014. ‘Water Towers’, Bernd Becher and Hilla Becher, 1972–2009 | Tate. [online] Tate. Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-water-towers-p81238> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Wylie, D., 2011. Photographer Donovan Wylie on the Maze series and his influences. Available at: <https://youtu.be/naoxP-iLvqU> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Shore, S., 1973. Stephen Shore – Uncommon Places. [online] Stephenshore.net. Available at: <http://stephenshore.net/photographs/uncommon/index.php?page=1&menu=photographs> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

The Independent Photographer. n.d. Stephen Shore: Uncommon Places | The Independent Photographer. [online] Available at: <https://independent-photo.com/news/stephen-shore-uncommon-places/> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Figures

Figure 1. Becher, B. and Becher, H., 2015. Water Towers. [image] Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bernd-becher-and-hilla-becher-water-towers-p81238> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Figure 2. Shore, S., 1975. Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21 1975. [image] Available at: <http://stephenshore.net/photographs/uncommon/index.php?page=15&menu=photographs> [Accessed 30 January 2021].