The problem at the heart of photographic expression through 1970s was essentiality of photography. “Mirrors and Windows” directed by John Szarkowski at MOMA in 1978 had a historical aspect on this problem. Two conceptions of photography – a mirror reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it and a window through which one might better know the world – show the principle of photography. There have been attempts of approach to contemporary photographic expression, one of which is “NEW PHOTOGRAPHICS” directed by William Jenkins at IMP/GHT in 1974.

 The photography of NEW TOPOGRAPHICS has something in common with neutral and objective attitude to the world. It must not be understood as a new trend of expression but as a tradition of American Landscape from the painters of Hudson River-school. Modern American landscape photography typified by Ansel Adams was deprived of entity in photographic description. But NEW TOPOGRAPHICS acquired new entity to return to classical landscape photography typified by Frontier Photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan.

 William Jenkins says, in the introduction of catalogue, that if “New Topographics” has a central purpose it is simply to postulate, at least for the time being, what it means to make a documentary photograph. NEW TOPOGRAPHICS presented an aspect of Landscape as Document.