Robert Adams - The Word and the Land

Robert Adams has imagined and felt the land through images and words with both eloquence and thoughtful care and concern. He manages to put forth a personal view, inspired by his own walks since he was a child in the Colorado Wilderness and a meaningful description of the transformation of the landscape with the development of civilization. His words and thoughts about photography are maybe only parallel to those of Jhon Szarkowski, both of them eloquent writers and imagemakers. Always associated with the New Topographic movement, of the likes of Frank Gohlke and The Bechers, Adams work has transcended the infamous show in Rochester to become one of the most acclaimed and influential views of the landscape in contemporary photography. We will study his images and his writings as a guide for our own inquiries of the land through the viewfinder. This is a workshop to question what is out there, not only to see the beauty but also to try and see the ethics of image making in the time of climate change and environmental challenges.

“If landscape art were only reportage, however, it would amount to an ingredient for science, which is not. There is always a subjective aspect in landscape art, something in the picture that tells us as much about who is behind the camera as about what is in front of it.” Robert Adams