In 1975 a new group composed of ten photographers arose and were featured in an exhibition called “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” This exhibition altered the world of photography, although this was unnoticeable at the time. The new photographers were less concerned with portraying an ideal image of nature as had the previous landscape photography had done, but rather they were more interested in showing plainly how man had altered it. The following images were inspired by this idea, often we forget how we have altered nature yet the evidence is there whether it is a trail up a mountain, a house on the beach or a city on an island our human trade mark is there. My photographs follow the idea of landscape that has been altered by human presence; however the techniques used in the photographs are different as well as are the frames and what’s in them. This idea appealed to me because as a civil engineer major I am interested in the alteration of nature by our presence, but also because I believe that although our presence is evident we should still strive to preserve nature and its beauty.
In this photograph my intention was to capture the beauty of nature as we see it every day on a sunset, but also to show how our presence represented in the what seems to be electricity lines is there altering the view.
This is a picture of Waikiki beach, Hawaii I think this captures a modernized 21st century city that we are used to seeing in our everyday life. However, we never notice of how men have altered nature in order to build such a city. We can see in the frame the beauty of the ocean, behind the city we can see the volcanoes and nature, but yet our human presence is more than evident in the image.
This image is almost the same as the previous, however this is a night shot in the beach. This image shows our alteration of the land and the view even at night.
This image was taken in Big Island, Hawaii. It shows a house lost in nature, with a almost paradise view. However, this paradise view is now altered ironically by those who wanted to preserve it as an everyday view.
In this image I attempted to frame a landscape containing both nature and its beauty but also the alteration man has done to it, such as the trail on the mountain or the urban city on the skirts of the mountain.
In this picture I wanted to show nature but I also to lead the focus to the man built gazebo to show the alteration of the landscape.
