Photograph by Robert Adams // ‘Frame for a Tract House’ // Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1969.
The body of work by American landscape photographer, Robert Adams which really caught my eye was ‘The New West’. Originally published in book form in 1974, the series, along with other New Topographics of the time, drastically changed the American perceptive on the landscape aesthetic, and therefore representation of the environment as a whole. Adams was mainly concerned with the “construction of tract and mobile homes, subdivisions, shopping centers, and urban sprawl in the suburbs of Colorado Springs and the Denver area.” With his signature “middle-grey scale” style employed, Adams set out to create objective and direct landscape imagery.
Apart from the tonal qualities of his work, the other most notable feature is his innate ability to compose photographs with ease. Furthermore, a vast selection appear to have been taken from a slightly elevated perspective. This gives the viewer a slight feeling of ‘looking down’ upon the place in question. Although this is not a technique that I am looking to use in my current project, it is an aesthetic tool that I admire and would like to use in the future.
J.
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