"Typology is the study of types, and a photographic typology is a suite of images or related forms, shot in a consistent, repetitive manner; to be fully understood, the images must be viewed as a complete series (Kristine McKenna, "Photo Visions," Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec 1991)."
One of the best examples of a typology is the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s. I've come across this work before when working on an emulation project and I didn't really understand the motivation behind it at the time. After looking at typologies I realise the content, motive and composition are all as important as each other.
Bernd and Hilla Becher. Winding Towers, Belgium, Germany. 1971–91.
Their work usually consists of grids of photographs containing variants of one type of structure eg. water towers. They travel around looking for these structures and photograph them in the exact same way to create a very conformed set of photos.
Their motivation was clearly a fascination with the structures themselves and I think that comes across in the work. They are all photographed to look as similar as possible which is why I think there projects always work. They are very strict with there composition and obviously put a lot of time into photographing such a wide range of structures.
Rediscovering there work has helped me get a grasp on typologies and what they really are about. At first I was struggling as I felt like my book was going to end up as a random collection of photos but I've now realised it's about keeping the subject the same and finding variations within it to create interesting photos. I think it's back to the drawing board to rethink some of my ideas to see how far I could take them and then I can start photographing, which I'm excited for.
