HISTORY OF TYPOLOGY PHOTOGRAPHY
August Sander's 1929 series of portraits titled "Face of Our Time" is the root of the art of photographic typologies. These series of images are a collection of works documenting German society between the two World Wars. Sander wanted to document different social types, classes and relationships between the people. He then realised that showing the images collectively were stronger than they would be as individual images. The collections were so powerful that the photographs were destroyed four years later when the Nazis went to power, and the books were banned.
When Bernd and Hila Becher were documenting broken-down buildings in German in 1959, the term "Typology" was used to describe their photography type. They took these images around the same distance and angle to record a landscape changing and disappearing before their eyes. Typologies don't only record moments in time, but they also encourage viewers to consider the subject's place in the world.
INTRODUCTION TO TASK
Typology Photography is the theme for this task. By taking photos for the same object (like different trees, different colour pens) around the same angle and distance, you combine them. Since we are in the middle of lockdown, I used items in my home to complete the task. Bernd and Hilla Becher were the photographers I researched to get a better idea of the task.
ARTIST RESEARCH
Bernd and Hilla Becher's photographs provided the base for a school of contemporary photography. These two German photographers systematically documented their country's industrial landscape. Their black and white images, forming the basis of their work, acted as typologies of vanishing architectural relics (such as water, gas tanks, towers) or visual case studies. Bernd Becher was born in Siegen, Germany, on August 20, 1931. He met Hilla Wobeser at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, where he later taught. Hilla was born on September 2, 1934, in Potsdam, Germany. Her relationship with Bernd led her to enrol at Kunstakademie Dusseldorf the following year, which started their mutual career.
Their photographs influenced an entire generation. At the age of 75, Bernd passed away on June 22, 2007, while Hilla passed on October 15, 2015, at 81. Their pieces are included in the Art Institute of Chicago collections, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Tate Gallery in London.
FINAL IMAGES
EVALUATION OF FINAL IMAGES
I used items around my home to use as the subjects of my typologies. I researched a couple who photographed and created the foundation for typology photography. Using their images with other information I gathered, I was able to understand my task further.
I think that the objects I used were unique in that they wouldn't be the first thing you think of photographing. Using a background to lay the items on, I could frame each image similar to each other without cropping them.
I then used photoshop to place the images into three rows and columns to create the typologies.
TASK EVALUATION
By taking images of different versions of a subject and putting them into rows and columns, I created two typologies for the task. By framing each photo similarly, you can see the slight difference in the main subjects. Using a colourful background helped define the objects clearly.
Bernd and Hilla Becher were the photographers I chose to research. Their typologies didn't influence mine, but looking at theirs helped me understand. I think I did a great job of framing the images. The framing was so similar that I didn't have to crop them for the subject to line up. If I had to change anything, I would take more photos of other objects but with slightly better lighting. Even though the lighting isn't terrible, it could have been better.
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