Customer Reviews

Robert Adams: Questions for an Overcast Day

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have never heard about Robert Adams, then the Questions for an overcast day" is not the best introduction to his exceptional landscape photography. No question, this little book containing about 60 b/w images of leaves would represent the 70 years old artist's posture as of 2007, his minimalist(?) style and his modest personality.

Nevertheless, you would certainly like Robert Adams even more when looking at his basic landscape work he persecuted as one of the New Topographers, an informal (quasi)group of American photographers in the seventies. You would also appreciate the line of thoughts of an artist developing since 40 years ago and relentlessly progressing through dozens of high quality publications of b/w landscapes.

What is Robert Adams' attitude as an artist, in one sentence? Nature is beautiful as it is, there is no need to make it look nicer; and images do not need words, use as few words in photography books as possible. Accordingly, in this book there are no captions. At the end, just two lines are describing the origin of the collection of the images, all black and white close-ups and are exhibiting many similar forms of dying leaves still hanging on the trees in the autumn wind:

"The leaves are those of young alders on the side of Neahkahnie Mountain above Oregon coast. It was October and the leaves were dry green."