Robert Adams (born May 8th, 1937) is an American photographer who focused on the changing landscape of the American west. His work first because popularised after he participated in the New Topographics exhibition (1975), and his book the New West (1974).
During his childhood Robert Adams liked Adams often accompanied his father on walks and hikes through the woods on Sunday afternoons. He also enjoyed playing baseball in open fields and working with his father on carpentry projects. He was an active Boy Scout, and was also active with the Methodist church that his family attended. He enjoyed being outdoors and that likely sparked his care for the natural environment, and how a lot of it is getting destroyed.
he first anticipated he would be in a career of teaching, but due to his passion for nature and how he saw it in it, he when down a path of photography. He bought a 35-mm reflex camera, taught himself the fundamentals of photography, and began making pictures infused with a love for the geography of his home state.
His vision is inspired by his joy in nature’s inherent beauty, yet tempered by his dismay at its exploitation and degradation. Adams uses photography to express his love for the landscape and to understand how urban and industrial growth have changed it, all the while insisting that beauty in the world has not been entirely eclipsed.
Photo Analysis
The photograph pictures a two-story house whose half-timber framing appears decorative rather than structural. It was taken under bright noon sunlight, the house’s shadow barely extends into its grassless yard. The house is almost covering the vast organic mountain range from behind, which is appearing much more durable that the uninspired, geometric house in the suburb. The composition creates a deadpan effect, added with the vast emptiness of the background and the lack of life. The lack of life creates a feeling of isolation, almost as a metaphor to how we are slowly isolating are self’s to the natural environment.
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