Notes for Friends [Paperback]

Robert Adams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1999

World renowned photographer Robert Adams explores the possibility of discovering beauty in the compromised landscape of the new American West. His photographs, rendering the landscape in rich black-and-white images, clearly demonstrate that beauty can be found, suggesting a new kind of exploration that could yield a transforming discovery -- the basis for a love of home. Pictures in the book reacquaint us with places that may have been lost to habit or prejudice. Robert Adams encourages us to walk minor roads that at first appear inconsequential, but that in fact lead to wonder. Light rains its miracle on fields next to suburban development, across the slopes of nameless foothills, and onto trees next to motorways.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Adams

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado (December 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870815458
• ISBN-13: 978-0870815454
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 9.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,354,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Adams, born in 1937, came to prominence as part of the photographic movement known as New Topographics. His work has been widely exhibited both in Europe and the United States. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Spectrum International Prize for Photography, and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love it but yes I'm biased, August 7, 2002

By 

Stuart Murdoch "everything in photography is ... (Melbourne Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Notes for Friends (Paperback)

Just this day received my newest purchase, by Robert Adams, wonderful dreamy and poetic, yet gritty and real.

Someone paid me the best compliment ever recently when they compared my own art to Mr Adams'

This book will take a proud spot beside my bed for the next few weeks it will be a joy to fall asleep with it in my hands dreaming of the impending spring and summer light that is soon to reach us here in the southern hemisphere.

I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was almost exclusively images, I was expecting another collection of essays similar to his recent book "Why People Photograph"

Crikey I'm not complaining

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adams vs Adams, July 6, 2002

By 

Samuel L Anthony (LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Notes for Friends (Paperback)

I couldn't agree more with the previous review. If I see another (Ansel) Adams calendar on a wine-bar wall, I think I may just throw up. That stuff just feels like chocolate box kitsch to me now, whereas (Robert) Adams is at least trying to show us exactly what he actually sees, rather than a stage managed image of 'natural' perfection, and so to me at least, he feels more genuine and far less smug than his more famous namesake. But hey, I love this book, and this photgrapher, so I'm probably a tad biased.

4.0 out of 5 stars Robert Adams' Landscape Photography, January 28, 2000

By 

Stephen Indvik "sindvik" (Mineapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Notes for Friends (Paperback)

Robert Adams' latest book of landscape photographs - "Notes for Friends" - continues to challenge our views of what a landscape photograph can and should be. Beware though, not only are Robert Adams and Ansel Adams not related, neither are their photographs. I believe Robert Adams is responding to a reality that was only beginning to be recognized when Ansel Adams was producing his greatest works during the 30's and 40's. As a result, Robert Adams' pictures are not the glorious large format views of wilderness once synonomous with our concept of 'nature'.

Most of these pictures were taken at the boundry of commercial farmland and encroaching urban sprawl. If you think about it for a while, what else is there? Does it really make sense for any photographer to plant his tripod in the same spot as the previous dozen have done in order to photograph the same 0.1% of our land reasonably preserved as wilderness? Isn't the seemingly endless succession of photographs of pristine beaches, glowing aspens and towering clouds over unspoiled mountains a deception if not an outright lie? Does anyone in 21st century America still think this is 'nature'?

But, what if a perceptive photographer who truly cares about all this were to just go out a few miles from home and walk about with a 35mm camera any of us could afford to own? What if his goal were to find whatever beauty may still exist and, perhaps, some reason to be hopeful for the future? What would result? I believe the result would be photographs just like the ones Robert Adams has given us in "Notes for Friends". For those who can cope with what we have done to our natual heritage, it's a wonderful book of pictures. For others seeking refuge in the past, it will invariably disappoint.