Breaking with the tradition of romantic landscape photography, Joe Deal photographed the American West, producing unflinching images of the radical ways it was being reshaped by development. Deal was one of the leading figures in a new wave of American photographers who emerged in 1975 with the exhibition "New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape." Referring to his deadpan style and choice of subjects—including tract houses, highway projects, and new suburbs—Deal asserted that “the most extraordinary images might be the most prosaic.”