A Great Classic

Robert Adams

One of the great classic books of American landscape photography has just been reprinted: Robert Adams's fine, iconoclastic '70s exploration of the Front Range, The New West.

The New West , subtitled Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range, was foundational for the New Topographics movement, and it marked (as well as anything) a fundamental change for American photography of landscape in general and of the West in particular: if Ansel Adams was in essence the last of the great 19th-century landscapists, echoing their heroic treatment of the West-as-wilderness, pristine, untrammeled and exotic, Robert Adams (no relation) was an early standout among younger generations of photographers who were taking a more jaundiced, documentary look at how land in the West was actually being used.

...Yet few love the land more than Robert Adams, who has written eloquently on the subject in short, epigrammatic essays and books such as Beauty In Photography and Why People Photograph, which I think are crucial companions to photographic books such as The New West, From the Missouri West, and the scarifying Los Angeles Spring. Robert Adams, who is a fine writer and has won both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur "genius grant," is in a sense American photography's counterpart to Wendell Berry.

Photograph by Robert Adams

Maybe a book will be written in the future comparing and contrasting those two Adamses, Ansel and Robert. Both were (are, in the case of Robert, who was born in 1937 and is now 78) environmentalists. But their approach to that is diametrically opposite—Ansel celebrates the land as it supposedly was when unpopulated or very sparsely populated (although the hand of man can still be seen in many such photographs by people who know what they are looking for), and Robert's work is in part a sustained cry of anguish at what has been done to the land through poor stewardship and exploitation; he accepts the presence of mankind everywhere and the banality of many of the elements we've imposed on the land, while at the same time always remaining conscious of the essential dignity of the landscape.

The new volume ($26.49) is a careful and loving recreation by Steidl of the 1974 original. It's a small book, 9x10 inches, and belongs on the shelf next to such books as American Photographs by Walker Evans, William Eggleston's Guide, and The Americans by Robert Frank.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Scott Symes: "I'll second your statement about how nice a book it is. I had mine on order for months and then just a couple of weeks ago it was finally released and shipped. The foreword by John Szarkowski sets it up perfectly for the reader/viewer. Highly recommended and a bargain at $27 on Amazon."

Tom Frost: "There has been one book looking at both Adamses: Reinventing the West, by Allison Kemmerer, 2002, Addison Gallery. It's still available at Amazon. I have a copy on my bookshelf."

Brian Adams: "For an appreciation of this photographer, I suggest you read "Robert Adams—What We Bought: The New World" by Tod Papageorge, from his book Core Curriculum published by Aperture in 2011.  —Brian Adams (no relation to Ansel, Robert or Bryan!)"

Kenneth Tanaka: "Thanks for the heads-up, Mike! Although I'm on a book-buying moratorium this is one that I've long wanted but not yet bought...until now! Aside: The charming little film "How to Make a Book With Steidl" features a segment of Gerhard visiting Robert Adams and his wife in their home. It's a lovely segment that suggested what a gentle but very sharp fellow Adams is. Perhaps they were planning this edition at the time."

Franz Josef: "Re 'AA was photographing in the tradition of the 19th-cent landscapists, especially Carleton Watkins,' which Mike wrote in the Comments section—I don't think Stieglitz would agree. He saw Adams as a 20th Century 'modernist' right in line with Strand and Steichen. Carleton Watkins, O'Sullivan, etc. were more akin to journalists covering the discovery and marvel of the Western landscape. Perhaps you're associating their large view cameras with a shared outlook but I think Adams was a modernist working with very sharp and literal elements in abstract form."

Huw Morgan: "Mike, I tune in every day because you are such a good writer, but there are some posts where you really shine. This is one of them. I love the comparison between Ansel and Robert and your analysis is superb."

Ash: "Thanks for letting me know about this book. The images strike a chord with me because I grew up Longmont, Colorado, a front range town that grew from a population of 43,000 in 1980 to over 86,000 people today. When my copy arrives it should trigger a mixed emotional response like Adams designed it to do."

John McMillin: "As a resident of the Front Range megalopolis, I can tell you this—lazy, banal and uninspiring architecture is abundant here. And what's worse, you see everything coming form a long way off, and there's not many trees to hide the mediocrity."

Eric Perlberg: "Tyler Green does a very high quality weekly podcast interviewing contemporary artists and curators. A few weeks ago he spoke at length with Robert Adams."

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "In addition to The New West and What We Bought, aficionados must get denver (all lowercase) which is published by Yale University Art Gallery, and forms with the other two a trilogy of some kind. Whenever someone asks me the perennial tip for avoiding shooting telephone poles or electric wires in a picture, I refer them to Robert Adams, who found brilliant ways of looking at them."

Comments

[Stan B.]

Have always respected the work of Robert Adams, but like jazz, I find much of it non negotiable emotionally.

[Frank Petronio]

I met Robert Adams when I was a young photographer traveling from Oregon to Rochester for my ill-fated grad school experience. He was very generous, our talk helped sway me towards not wasting my time in school and instead getting out to photograph. He had a lovely cottage home, I even met his famous dog. And he gave me a few of his rare, earlier books. More than any other teacher, that single meeting made a huge difference to me.

Later his book, "Beauty in Photography" helped clarify my thinking, it has been one of the most important books in my life.

Nowadays I am sure I would disagree with his puritanical environmentalism. And many of his individual photos leave me cold ~ they work best in book form where he presents a sequenced narrative. Also I don't know what he was thinking when he did some of the "pop" titles in the 1990s (the books about his dog and night time strolls)? It almost seemed like he was trying to cash in on his very faint glimmer of fame? But his more solid books like "From the Missouri West" are touchstones that I will always refer to.

He also introduced, or at least popularized, a modern style of printing that was the opposite of Ansel Adams and the West Coast School. I doubt he used filters, his Tri-X skies were luminous and high key - while holding detail - and he let the light dictate the photo, he wasn't trying to boss tones around in the darkroom like a Zone System zealot. You sensed the intensity and heat of the mountain light, some of his pictures captured the feeling of the SouthWest in Summer... or the gloom of the Oregon coast. And simply from a craft perspective, look at his books ~ it's no small feat to get such consistently even grey skies with roll film (Hasselblad user).

So yes, he deserves a spot alongside Eggleston and Friedlander.

[Paul Metcalf]

I think we'er now in the 21st century, the last one was the 20th, when Ansel was photographing.

[Right, but what I'm saying is that AA was photographing in the tradition of the 19th-cent landscapists, especially Carleton Watkins. --Mike]

[John Camp]

Not sure I totally agree with the comparison between the Adamses.
Ansel was not a documentarian, like a lot of 19th Century western photographers whose work was almost an adjunct to exploration. He was a modernist, conducting a typically modernist campaign to locate the ineffable. When he took his famous picture of the snow-covered tree, or of the Moonrise at Hernandez, NM, he wasn't saying, "Look at this landscape," he was saying, "Look at this beauty." Ansel's work was "western" only because he was in the west, IMHO, but could have been done win the Appalachians if he'd been in the east, or in the Alps, if he'd been in Europe. Robert Adamses' work was actually more in the older tradition, of going out to see what was there, of exploring. The only thing that made it "newer" was that what was there, was not what most people took pictures of; in some ways, it was actually a form of criticism, and that was a whole different thing than what Ansel was doing. IMHO.

[Wayne]

Thanks Mike, It is on order. Amazon has about five example photos and I knew, immediately, I wanted it. The only other time this has happened was when, per your recommendation, I looked at Here, Far Away.

[Hugh Crawford]

"Maybe a book will be written in the future comparing and contrasting those two Adamses, Ansel and Robert."

http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-West-Photographs-Ansel-Robert/dp/1879886472

[BruceK]

You sure cost me a snootful of money for books... :-)

[At least you're not spending it on wacky-terbacky and wine. --Mike]

[Kefyn Moss]

This is something I see in many photo competitions that I am often solicited to enter, i.e. that the landscape category mustn't have man made objects included. I used to see landscapes a bit that way in my twenties and the early days of my photography but that romantic ideal progressively evolved so that now I actually prefer man made objects to be included. It seems to give context to the image in many instances. Although Ansel did photograph people and towns (e.g. Sunrise Over Hernandez) and as blasphemous as it may sound to some, that style which many still try and emulate seems much less relevant today, not historically or as art, but as a contemporary aesthetic. Funny how I don't think that way about black and white though . . .

[Eliott James]

I appreciate the point of his work but I sure hate to be reminded of how we have made such a terrible imprint upon the land. All land. Unrealistic, I know. We have to live somewhere but must we destroy so much for so little.

As a landscape photographer I try to find the unspoiled land but it seems near impossible. It saddens me to have to edit out the trash from my photos, found especially in streams and rivers. But I do edit it out. For my sanity.

[Edd Fuller]

The kinship between Robert Adams and Wendell Berry holds true for Adams' writing and Berry's non-fiction.

But it seems to me that Robert's photography is quite different in spirit from Berry's fiction. The idealized rural world in Berry's fiction has more in common, I think, with Ansel's unspoiled nature photographs.

[Dan MacDonald]

Interesting contrast. When I was first photographing I greatly admired and wished to emulate Ansel Adams (still respect him of course), with time though I discovered my tastes moving towards Robert Adams, Stephen Shore, Eggleston, etc, which is where they have stayed. May need to get this book.

[Doug Howk]

A very good comparison volume of the two Adams is "Reinventing the West: the photographs of Ansel Adams and Robert Adams" with a good essay by Allison Kemmerer.

[Bob]

That's some great writing, Mike. Thank you.

[NancyP]

Yep, saw that in the Steidl list, time to get it. I am glad to hear that it has been granted decent reproduction.

[james wilson]

It should be remembered that AA photographed many subjects in addition to the grand landscapes for which he is famous. A cursory review of any of his monographs will reveal a broad range of images limited only by his view camera ethic. You will see nice portraits, many buildings, different objects and those of social comment. The angel in the railroad yard, Manzanar interment camp are subjects that RA could have appreciated. Weston said you can take a good picture of anything and photographed a toilet seat to prove it. I don't believe that RA achieved that standard in some of his efforts.

[John Mather]

Thanks Mike. For me, Adam's writings are synergistic with his photographs. One adds great value to the other. They are both sparse and dense at the same time. Book ordered.

[AndrewNadolski]

I have the previous Aperture version of the book and it is a classic. Hopefully the tritone separations are as good in the Steidl reprint.

[Dogman]

Like Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander and William Eggleston, it took a while for me to appreciate Robert Adams' work. When I finally "got it", it was an epiphany. Prior to understanding their work, my own photography was based on the art of exclusion--leaving out the "ugly" stuff. Robert Adams, et.al, showed me that ugly stuff is really quite beautiful. His writing could be inspirational but the "conversation" book "Along Some Rivers" showed me he could also be elitist. No matter, his photography is transcendent.

I was surprised to find I don't have "The New West" in my library. I have fixed that oversight now.

[Michael]

Thanks so much for this heads up. I grew up in Colorado Springs at more or less the time when Adams was making images on the Front Range. So for me there is an edge of nostalgia to add to the senses of beauty, vast space and predictable housing. My places for exploration every day were the rough gravelly grounds around the new build where it blended into high prairie. The grown me mourns the loss of wilderness, but the child me celebrates those magical in-between spaces.

[Bob Schellhammer]

Your comparison of Robert Adams to Wendell Berry is spot on.