Part II: Contemporary Photographers
Robert Adams
The 1970s brought the exhibition New Topographics: Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman House in Rochester. The show featured the work of ten then young photographers who were choosing to capture landscape as it is used and abused by man rather than the idyllic views of Ansel Adams. One of those photographers has strongly influenced my thinking about photography: Robert Adams. A university English professor turned photographer, Adams has written extensively about his philosophy of photography. Two monographs I highly recommend are:
- Robert Adams, Beauty in Photography, Aperture, 1981
- Robert Adams, Why People Photograph, Aperture, 1994
Adams’ images demand close attention. Carefully composed, many impart a sense of mystery that is part of his message but may be missed by the casual viewer. Few of his individual images are “greatest hits” images destined for the wall over the sofa. The strength of Adams’ work is the juxtaposition of a series of images that tell a convincing story. Steidl has republished some of Adams’ work that originally appeared in monographs in the 1970s and 1980s. With advances in printing, these newer reproductions are almost certainly better than the original printings.
- Robert Adams, Gone? Colorado in the 1980s, Steidl, 2010
- Robert Adams, The New West, Steidl, 2015
- Robert Adams, Cottonwoods, Steidl, 2017
Christopher Burkett
Christopher has spent a lifetime seeking to capture the beauty of a world filled with light and peace and to convey that sense of wonderful light in large format Cibachrome prints. Some have called Christopher the Ansel Adams of color printing. I know that when I first saw his prints, I reacted with the same awe I felt when I first viewed Ansel Adams’ original prints. With his wife and large format (8” x 10”) cameras, he travels the U.S. for a few weeks a year, chasing the images that will best convey that sense of peace and light. Most of his year is spent in the Portland, Oregon, area printing. While Cibachrome was discontinued in 2012, Burkett bought a large supply of paper and chemicals which he stores in a commercial freezer, hopefully to last while he is able to continue printing.
Christopher has published two monographs. Both do justice to his Cibachrome prints. If selecting just one, I would pick:
- Christopher Burkett, Intimations of Paradise, West Wind Arts, 1999.
Joe Cornish
Several contemporary British landscape photographers convinced me that the “in-your-face grand vistas of the American West” are not a requirement for fine landscape images. Among those photographers, I most admire the work of Joe Cornish. Almost uniformly, his images convey a sense of peaceful quietness that I hope to convey in my own landscapes.
Joe has authored or co-authored several fine books on landscape photography. Many are intended to grow the photographer’s skills in the craft of photography. A more recent monograph is a thirty-year retrospective of Joe’s fine work.
- Joe Cornish & Roly Smith, This Land, Frances Lincoln Ltd, 2016
Michael Kenna
Michael is a master at simplifying a composition and further removing distracting elements through long-duration exposures. No longer accepting commercial commissions, Michael travels the world with his cameras, seeking quiet, elegant, frequently texture-rich landscapes. Some photographers seek to emulate Michael’s work by strapping 10-stop and 14-stop neutral density filters over their lenses. Such derivative attempts frequently miss the point of first simplifying the composition. Kenna seems to continue publishing at least once per year; there a many Kenna monographs available. If you were to select just two, I recommend his two published retrospectives:
- Michael Kenna, A Twenty Year Retrospective, Nazraeli Press, 1994
- Michael Kenna, Retrospective Two, Nazraeli Press, 2004
Sally Mann
Mann is a world-class photographer who has built a career away from the great metropolises that many believe the epicenters of all that is interesting in photography. With degrees in creative writing, Mann is a largely self-taught photographer. Her first work, documenting the life of her three young children at home in rural Virginia, conveyed a strong sense of what it is like to be a child growing into adolescence. She turned to photographing the southern landscapes as only a daughter of the American South could do. Her more recent work explores the legacy of slavery that continues to weigh on the American experience.
I recommend two volumes:
- Sally Mann, Hold Still, Little Brown, 2015. This is her autobiography. Read this first and you will have a stronger appreciation for her images.
- Sarah Greenough & Sarah Kennel, editors, A Thousand Crossings, Abrams Books, 2018. This monograph was released in conjunction with the recently concluded (near-career retrospective) exhibition of Mann’s work that opened at the National Gallery of Art and traveled to several cities in the U.S. and France.
Kent Reno
Who? That’s the point. Kent was a career pilot for one of the charter airlines. His avocation was street and travel photography. Kent traveled the world. His crew rest days in foreign cities provided the opportunity to find and capture wonderful images of the people of the world.
- Kent Reno, Ground Time, Custom & Limited Editions, 1999.
Sources
It is too easy to simply feed the a*.com monster when searching for books. We should all fear the day the monster has become the sole source for books. For those books still in print, I recommend you try to buy directly from a local independent bookseller, the author if possible, or the publisher. For those books that have gone out of print, I have found Alibris to be a consistently useful aggregator of new and used books available from independent booksellers. For those in the UK, consider Alibris’ UK site. I have found Alibris’ seller ratings to be quite accurate and helpful. In my experience, an independent bookseller with a five-star Alibris seller rating is a business that loves books. You can count on them to accurately describe a book’s condition and to pack it with care for damage-free shipment.
Frank Field, The Sea Ranch, California, Revised November 2020