Robert Adams was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1937. His refined black-and-white photographs document scenes of the American West of the past four decades, revealing the impact of human activity on the last vestiges of wilderness and open space. Although often devoid of human subjects, or sparsely populated, Adams’s photographs capture the physical traces of human life: a garbage-strewn roadside, a clear-cut forest, a half-built house.
Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado
An underlying tension in Adams’s body of work is the contradiction between landscapes visibly transformed or scarred by human presence and the inherent beauty of light and land rendered by the camera. Adams’s complex photographs expose the hollowness of the nineteenth-century American doctrine of Manifest Destiny, expressing sombre indignation at the idea (still alive in the twenty-first century) that the West represents an unlimited natural resource for human consumption.
“I think if you placed me almost anywhere and gave me a camera you could return the next day to find me photographing. It helps me, more than anything I know, to find home.”- Robert Adams
He has received numerous awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (1994); the Spectrum International Prize for Photography (1995); and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2006). Major exhibitions include San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2005); Yale University Art Gallery (2002); Denver Art Museum (1993); Philadelphia Museum of Art (1989); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1979). Adams lives and works in north-western Oregon.
What I like about his work: I really like the simplicity yet complexness of this work, this is because the photographic skill is reflected onto the landscape, whilst the landscape provides a different point of view, as it provides Adams’ with a chance to express his love for this American space throughout his photos. I think that the lighting and brightness throughout his work highlights the importance of our nature environment and brings attention to the fact that we need to address our environmental issues sooner rather then later on order to have a future.
1975: New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape, International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, January 1975. Curated by William Jenkins. Included work by Adams, Lewis Baltz, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel, Jr.
1989: The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Mid-career retrospective.
2005–2006: Turning Back, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 2005; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2005; Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, 2006. Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.
Summer Nights, Walking
In the mid-1970s, Robert Adams began recording nocturnal scenes near his former home in Colorado. Illuminated by moonlight and streetlamp, houses, roads, sidewalks and fields seemed transfigured. 25 years after first publishing a sequence of these photos in 1985 as Summer Nights, he revisited his project, amending its title and completely re-editing its contents to create a more disquieting and more accurate reflection of his experience. Hailed as a new classic, Summer Nights, Walking went out of print soon after it was published in 2009. This sensitively enlarged edition, printed with the same exquisite care as the original, makes this revered body of work available to a new audience.
What I like about this work: I like that the contrast within his projects are very consistent, for example in Adams’ ‘Summer Nights, Walking’ project all of the images have a dark exposure, helping to help create this eerie atmosphere and high contrast. Adams’ has done other projects in places such as Arizona, where the exposure of his images are very high, and more attention is drawn to the landscape rather then any other aspects of the images. Additionally, I like that all of his photography focuses on the landscape, as I find this kind of photography very interesting and it can be created in many different locations with different equipment. Throughout my project I would like to attempt to recreate some of Adams’ lightly exposed work, as I think that this makes images more successful.
Image analysis: I think the blurriness and and complexity yet simpleness of this image is very interesting in itself. In my opinions, this image is very complex as all of the leaves and flowers which are focused in the foreground are not very clear, and this means that it takes more attention to figure out what exactly is going on throughout this image, it makes us consider what the intention behind this image is and also what could possibly be in the background? On the other hand, this image could be be interpreted as increasingly simple as the image is mostly just because of flowers and leaves, the background is confusing meaning that more simplicity is present throughout the foreground and I think thats what I like most about this image.
Robert Adams’ created lots of work throughout his lifetime, producing many books which ended up having enormous amounts of recognition. His work has also been recognised as it addresses concerns regarding the environment and our ever-changing climate we life in. This is because he was a part of the ‘New Topographic’ and this helped increase his name in the photographic world.
