New Topographics? a contribution from my late father.

My father was a journalist and had no formal training in writing or photography. He died in 1976 and I am currently digitising his entire oeuvre of mainly 6x6 black and white negatives. 

My Fathers Work

His photography was simple and to the point, he was a journalist and was interested in the facts. The pictures I am currently working on deal with the construction of a new housing estate in my home town of Aviemore in the early 1970's. The estate is still in existence and I lived in it from aged 12 to aged 18. My house can be seen in one of the images.

These pictures bring to mind a photographic movement which had a great influence on me when I was studying photography.

"New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape" was an exhibition that epitomized a key moment in American landscape photography and one which shaped and informed my own photographic practice.
New Topographics

I have some examples of my fathers work below and I find their simplicity of thought and execution very satisfying and uncomplicated. They were intended to be records of a construction work in progress recorded for posterity, nothing more nothing less,nothing fancy. My father had no aesthetic axe to grind, no creative philosophy to expound therefore these pictures are a pure form of documentary practice where objectivity is at its maximum. Because of this I find them very satisfying pictures.