Topographic: Carmel, Indiana
by Ron Kern
I am a self-taught photographer that has studied and practiced the art of photography for more than thirty-seven years. My photographs are in the collection of the Midwest Museum of American Art. My primary influences are Robert Frank, David Michael Kennedy, Minor White and Ed Ruscha. I’ve lived in Carmel, Indiana since I was four years old, for a total o
f 60 years. I have personally witnessed a sprawling suburb grow out of farm fields and woods, and take over a small town. In the center of the area that was to become today’s Carmel, was a small farm town with a large grain elevator next to a train track that facilitated commerce. Founded in 1837 and originally named, Bethlehem, the town was incorporated in 1874 and then named, Carmel. Especially due to its proximity to Indianapolis, as time passed, Carmel began to develop housing, expanded schools and businesses. Development began to kick into into high gear in the 1960s and Carmel became a city in 1976. Since then, annexations have caused Carmel’s population swell to approximately 107,000. And, an aggressive local government has overseen Carmel’s public spending skyrocket resulting in a building boom. Carmel is essentially now a “man-altered landscape.”
In 1975, the exhibition, New Topographics, Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape* presented a radical shift in photography. Abandoning the beautiful and poetic photographs of the landscape where man’s presence was not seen, New Topographics presented unromanticized views of the industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl and everyday scenes, all a result of man’s impact on the natural landscape. The photographers used a detached approach resulting in images void of style, but full of substance. As opposed to the natural environment, the photographs showed the stark reality of the landscape that man had built and lived in every day. Topographic: Carmel, Indiana is a photography project that I am undertaking and presenting here on this website that uses the concepts and ideas employed by the photographers in the exhibition, New Topographics, Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. My intimate familiarity of the suburb that I grew up in, and currently live in, affords me the unique opportunity to photograph and present the man-made landscape that is Carmel, Indiana. Ron Kern
March, 2022
