Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain [Hardcover]

Tess Gallagher (Author), Elizabeth Brown (Author), Eirik Johnson (Photographer), David Guterson (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2009

A culmination of four years of photographing throughout Oregon, Washington and Northern California, Sawdust Mountain focuses on the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support. Timber and salmon are the bedrock of a regional Northwest identity, but the environmental impact of these declining industries has been increasingly at odds with the contemporary ideal of sustainability. In this, his second book, Johnson reveals a landscape imbued with an uncertain future--no longer the region of boomtowns built upon the riches of massive old-growth forests. Johnson, a Seattle native, describes his photographs as, "a melancholy love letter of sorts, my own personal ramblings..." Through this poetic approach, Sawdust Mountain records a region affected by historic economic complexities and, by extension, one aspect of our fraught relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century.
Eirik Johnson, born in Seattle in 1974, is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, George Eastman House and Aperture Gallery. His first book, Borderlands, was awarded the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2005.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With photography taken in the American Northwest (Oregon, Washington and Northern California), Sawdust Mountain portrays the issues facing that region, for example growing environmental concerns about logging. Of course, it is not a simple story. Despite the fact that we love simple narratives - with us facing 'evildoers' - the reality, of course, is quite different. That reality asks for a photographer to come and to experience, to see the different facets, to take photographs without preconditioned responses. This is what Johnson did, and the result clearly is more than 'just' a fine-art photography book." -- Jörg Colberg --Conscientious blog

"A permanent mist hangs over the inhabitants of a region Mr. Johnson calls Sawdust Mountain, and it isn't just the rainy climate. In his moving group portrait of a community of loggers and fisherman in the Pacific Northwest, Mr. Johnson, a native son, documents the precariousness of life in this corner of America. At the same time, his photographs capture the defiance of those who have made certain choices--rural solitude instead of an urban economy--and are content (or not) with that bargain." -- Richard B. Woodward --Wall Street Journal

"Eirik Johnson's quietly theatrical photographs carry the sense of a way of life and work that is on the cusp of slipping away... Although the images are unsentimental, many exert a strangely emotive tug - part nostalgia for an optimistic past, part sadness that a natural environment, indelibly marked and altered by mankind, is dissolving before our eyes." -- Claire Holland --Financial Times Weekend Magazine

"A bonafide work of true documentary photography at its finest, Sawdust Mountain represents four years of photography in the Pacific Northwest by a young photographer looking at the relationships among the fishing and timber industries, the natural resources they exploit, and the resulting ambivalent relationships. Throughout Oregon, Washington and Northern California, Eirik Johnson created his own kind of melancholy love letter to the natural environmnents he loves, and to their uncertain future." -- Jay Gardner --Picture Magazine

"His images are depressing but not hopeless. The landscape may not be poised for recovery, but it's ready for the next uncertain thing--new uses, though surely with fewer users. Johnson portrays those who remain with stoic, mossy fortitude." -- Brian Miller --Seattle Weekly

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Aperture; 1 edition (June 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597110914
• ISBN-13: 978-1597110914
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 11.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks for the incredible book...., February 18, 2010

By 

Isaac E. Newton "Nacatamal" (San Francisco, Ca. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain (Hardcover)

"Thanks for the incredible book...best holiday gift I recieved this year."

This was the subject line from the note I got from a friend (architect and well known creative guru) I had recently purchased this book for. I got a copy from another friend when it first came out and found myself fully emerged in the incredible photography for countless hours (no joke!). I rarely if ever write product reviews but this one is worth writing about. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful and thought-provoking, February 16, 2010

By 

Nicole Macinnes (Seattle, Wa. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain (Hardcover)

What I love about this book is that it combines a variety of photographic modes -- portraits, landscapes, interiors, close-ups -- and merges them into a unified theme that gives the viewer a powerful message of environmental and economic transformation. I return again and again to the images, some because of their sheer beauty ("Rogue River", "Destruction Island"), others because of their poignancy ("The Sweater Store"), and others because of their compelling subjects (several of Missy, "Storefronts"). Whatever your interests, I believe you will find this book a treasure.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique Work - Impressive Photos, February 13, 2010

By 

US Citizen "US citizen" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eirik Johnson: Sawdust Mountain (Hardcover)

I recently saw Johnson's work on display at the Henry Art Gallery. His work describes a heretofore undocumented aspect of American history. Shown alongside historic photos of the Pacific Northwest from early pioneer days, one gets a sense of the place in history that Johnson's work claims.

For hundreds of years people have been hunting, gathering, farming, scavenging, building dams, logging, developing housing and even selling Star Wars memorabilia in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Now someone has documented these people and the land they rely on. A mix between the work of Ansel Adams and Robert Franks, this work is as important as Franks' "The Americans" Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, Expanded Edition and as beautiful as Adams' "California". California: With Classic California Writings

Fans of Raymond Carver's work would enjoy a rainy day with Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories and Johnson's book as a complement. As to claims that the artist is trying to cash in on some environmental movement, I don't see it. This work brings the reader and viewer a real slice of America that many people would otherwise never get to see due to the inaccessible nature of so much of the Northwest.