by Jerry O’Neill

Back in 1975 there was a landmark exhibition of photographs called New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. It became the second-most-cited photography exhibit in history, beaten only by The Family of Man, curated by Edward Steichen, which opened in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado, 1973, by Robert Adams

But where The Family of Man was humanistic and warm, many visitors to New Topographics felt it was cold and impersonal, and well, maybe even a little weird. After all, by the standards of the day, landscape photography might include Nicholas Nixon’s excellent, perspective-corrected view-camera photo of the Boston Public Library. But what about photos of an empty parking lot, or a motel where each room was a separate “teepee” (with a TV antenna on top), or a trailer park, even if it’s raked by dramatic light?

So, back in 1975, New Topographics (mounted by the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York), drew comments both positive and negative. But whatever one’s opinion, it was an important show that Eastman House says “signaled the emergence of a new approach to landscape photography, ultimately giving a name to a movement and style.” As an example of its far-reaching effects, today— 34 years later—there’s an active New Topographics group on Flickr, showing “work that shows human activity and interaction within the landscape.”

View of the Boston Public Library, 1974, by Nicholas Nixon

So the show is being recreated for an international tour by the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona (www.creativephotography.org) and George Eastman House, with a selection of more than 100 works from the original show. The 10 photographers featured in 1975, and again in the new show, are Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel Jr. Eastman House says, “The current exhibition demonstrates both the historical significance of their photo­graphs and the continued relevance of this work in today’s culture.”

New Topographics is at Eastman House through September 27, meaning it closes there shortly after you receive this issue. But it will travel to eight venues in the United States and Europe: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Oct. 25, 2009–Jan. 3, 2010); Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson (Feb. 19–May 16, 2010); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (July 17–Oct. 3, 2010); Landesgalerie Linz, Austria (Nov. 10, 2010–Jan. 9, 2011), Photographische Sammlung Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, Germany (Jan. 27–April 3, 2011); Jeu de Paume, Paris (April 11–June 12, 2011); and the Nederlands Fotomuseum Rotterdam, the Netherlands (July 2–Sept. 11, 2011); and Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Bilbao, Spain (November 2011–January 2012).