Seb Gevers - Driftwood

Read Text »

10.01.25 // Working from home

Some more images in my quest to be creative even when there's not that much opportunity to be creative.

08.01.25 // Back to work

Back to work after the Xmas holidays. A bit of a struggle, the first day back, especially after being away for a while. I feel very overwhelmed by everything I need to do. Thankfully it's a short week.

06.01.25 // New Topographics

Talking to Claude and ChatGPT the other day about new topographics filled me with motivation

A few images taken over the past few years around Amsterdam, and in particular focussing on man-made nature, or rather, that space where human presence encroaches on nature. Nature is hard to find in a busy city like Amsterdam, but it's there if you look.

03.01.25 // A(nother) Chat with Claude

A Lewis Baltz influenced image from a short walk earlier this week. This is what Claude had to say about it.

This image strongly aligns with the New Topographics style as well. Its minimalist composition, focus on human-altered spaces, and subdued tone reflect the aesthetic and thematic concerns of the movement.

The symmetry and geometric layering—brick wall, hedge, and bike racks—create a visually stark but structured scene. It draws attention to the banal or overlooked aspects of urban life, transforming them into a subject of aesthetic and intellectual inquiry. The lack of overt human presence while highlighting their impact is also a key feature of New Topographics photography.

This photo might evoke the work of Lewis Baltz, particularly his "The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California" series, where mundane urban features and minimalist compositions take center stage. The attention to texture in the hedge and wall also recalls Bernd and Hilla Becher's typological studies of industrial structures.

Your ability to distill the scene into essential elements is very effective. It captures the kind of detached observation and quiet irony often celebrated in the New Topographics movement.

03.01.25 // A Chat with Claude

I asked Claude, an AI chatbot to tell me what it thinks of my images. Prepare for some hard truths.

I asked Claude what it thinks of this image, taken in Durgerdam, a small town just across the water from Amsterdam, and a place I go to quite often. I also asked it of which photographer does it remind you? Claude, after some thinking came back with the following ...

This image actually feels more reminiscent of earlier documentary photographers, particularly Robert Adams' style, but I wouldn't classify it as strictly New Topographics. While it does show the intersection of human activity and landscape (with the industrial buildings on the horizon), its primary subject matter and treatment feels more aligned with the humanist documentary tradition.

The key elements - the washing line with white laundry creating a strong linear element against the landscape, the industrial backdrop, and the intimate domestic activity in a semi-rural setting - remind me more of the social documentary work of photographers like Paul Strand or the Farm Security Administration photographers of the 1930s and 40s.

The New Topographics movement typically focused more on the stark, anonymous aspects of urban/suburban development, often deliberately avoiding such obviously human or domestic elements. This image, with its poetic use of laundry lines and the juxtaposition of domestic life against industrial development, feels more narrative and humanistic in its approach.

However, there is an interesting tension in the image between the domestic foreground and the industrial background that does speak to some of the themes that would later become central to the New Topographics movement - the encroachment of industrial development on traditional landscapes and ways of life. But the treatment here feels more emotionally engaged than the deliberately neutral, systematic approach that characterized New Topographics work.

It asked me what particularly drew me to this image in relation to New Topographics. I said that what draws my eye is the mix of simple urban life (in this case the washing line) the vast rural landscape and the urban, industrialised scene beyond.

It replied that that's a great observation! What you're describing is exactly what makes this image so compelling - it captures those three distinct layers of human experience and landscape transformation that characterized mid-20th century life: the domestic, the rural, and the industrial.

The washing line acts as both a visual and metaphorical connecting element - it's a humble, everyday detail that draws a literal line through the composition, leading our eye from the intimate domestic sphere toward that industrial horizon. The white laundry creates a striking visual contrast against the landscape, while also symbolizing something deeply human and routine against the backdrop of industrial development.

This type of layered reading of landscape - where domestic life, agricultural land, and industrial development coexist and intersect - became a crucial theme in photography of this period. While perhaps not strictly New Topographic in its execution (it's too emotionally resonant and humanistic for that), it does anticipate some of that movement's interests in how different types of human activity and development reshape the landscape.

The composition is particularly effective in how it uses the diagonal line of the washing to create depth, leading our eye from the personal to the industrial, from foreground to background, almost like a timeline of development. It's a wonderful example of how a seemingly simple scene can capture complex social and environmental transformations.

I then asked ChatGPT the same question. Here's what it told me.

Your image has a strong connection to the New Topographics movement. This photographic style is known for its stark, neutral presentation of landscapes shaped by human intervention. Your photo depicts a balance between the built environment (power lines, distant buildings) and the natural environment (the fields and canal), which is characteristic of the style.

The use of black-and-white enhances the formal qualities of the composition, focusing on texture, contrast, and geometry without the distraction of color. The laundry on the line adds an intimate, human element, while still being understated, which fits well with the movement’s themes.

It reminds me of the work of photographers like Bernd and Hilla Becher, who captured industrial structures with a similar detached objectivity, or Lewis Baltz, whose images often explored mundane or overlooked aspects of the built environment. The open, horizontal composition and attention to detail may also evoke elements of Stephen Shore or Robert Adams, particularly the latter’s exploration of suburban and rural landscapes.

Your photograph certainly fits within the spirit of New Topographics! Let me know if you'd like feedback on any specific compositional aspects.

All in all not bad, to be honest. Quite a lot of good feedback there and, if nothing else, led me to the work of Lewis Baltz (🔗)

31.12.24 // Around the Polder

At lunchtime I sometimes go our for a walk around the polders and golf course at the back of the house. It takes me around 40 minutes or so, and gives me chance to get some fresh air and listen to a podcast. I sometimes take the camera with me, but not always. These images were taken on my phone, a OnePlus Nord 3. The quality is not bad (it's a 16mp sensor) and it's handier than schlepping a big X-Pro 3 around with me.