It may be apocryphal, but some great composer supposedly said about Beethoven, "you have no idea how his footsteps echo in our heads." In American landscape photography, Robert Adams' work carries a similar force. You are helping so many with these short gorgeous intelligent videos. Thank you.
"Robert Adams is a soft spoken, understated man who radiates a quiet intelligence and an earthy spirituality" I think these words describe you as well .... Cheers for the wonderful tutelage!
Light, Light, Light . . . that is something I hammered into my students over the years. Light As Subject cannot be overemphasized. The quiet beauty of Adams's photographs is a reminder to us all to slow down, breathe, look carefully and live in the quiet in-between moments. Thank you for sharing this with us.
The landscape in all forms is there in plain sight just in front of us. Most do not see it. When we see it we experience everyday wonders everywhere... 😊
Recently, since the death of Richard Serra, it struck me that the artists of my life are nearing the end of their lives. Robert Adams, Lee Friedlander, Josef Koudelka, Philip Glass, David Hockney, William Eggleston, and for some reason Adams photographs describe this feeling of life being finite more than anyone else
I always thought that the New Topographics, was all about criticism of the influence of man on the environment. It's nice to see that Adams did appreciate and see the beauty in these landscapes. I grew up with this idea that nature has to be pure, with no human influence. For a long time this kept me from fully appreciating the beauty of the highly populated country I live in (the Netherlands). Many of my fellow countrymen believe that you have to go abroad to see real nature.....it's really sad they are blind to what can be found here.
Tough questions being asked here - by Adams and you! A post-beauty world is a modern prospect and a conceivable reality. Hard to undo. Wow, Adams is such a subtle communicator - thanks for the 'starter for ten.'
Graeme, THANK YOU for covering one of the most influential photographer of the XXth century. Robert Adams is such a contrast to another famous Adams. I much prefer Robert’s landscapes rather than Ansel’s.
Thanks for this Graeme, I know many don't know and understand the work of Robert Adams (at least here in Europe), great you covered him here, a great photographer of our time
Hi Ralf I would have thought that his work was well-known everywhere. Even so, traces of his aesthetic show through in a lot of European photography. So even if they don't know it, he is very present.
@@PhotoConversations I'd say in the photography scene yes. Steidl, the most prestigious photobook publisher in Germany published many (all?) of his photo books and I've heard 'The New West' is considered for reprinting. But in the public his name is unknown I'd say, unlike Ansel Adams or Robert Frank for example
Thanks for this excellent video … a fine insight into a thoughtful and inspirational photographer. As it happens, I came across my favourite tree while riding my bicycle. I’ve photographed it on several occasions in different seasons and conditions and look forward to going back to it on future bicycle rides. 📷🚴♂️🙂 PS: I always have my Fuji X100V with me now on bicycle rides using the PS Bagworks rider strap and a JJC neoprene camera case. I prefer black and white JPEG (Acros) landscapes and endeavour to capture as near to final an image as possible in the moment.
Really interesting, insightful and intelligent video on probably the photographer I find is the most inspirational to me, not just for his work but also his humanity. I often go through his books and get lost in them. HIs work is not for everyone, but for those that it resonates with, it resonates strongly.
My pursuit has always been nature, landscape, inspiring architecture, subjects I hold close. After so many road trips in search for this harmony and beauty, I have found it has succumbed to corporate asphalt and concrete, countless strip malls, dried up ground cover, payday loans, gas stations, ugliness that defines the modern human environment. Where once trees, flowers, clean water, birds and animals existed. Yet people endure in it, I endure and suffer in it. It pervades our landscape and is ever expanding, I cannot determine why. I have started to photograph this demoralizing landscape and its human conditions, it's the only way I can come to terms with it. Many do not like seeing the photographs. So I find this video and Robert Adams, whom I've heard of, but not experienced his work. Thank you for this video, it is a coincidence I'm glad to find, and see that another artist has seen and dealt with also. Yes, I know many will disagree with my experience,.
I always can depend on you to provide a sensitive and multilayered perspective on a photographer. In my area of Texas we have "heritage trees" which are protected rather than destroyed. It is a small step but a hopeful one.
Great video about a fantastic photographer, thank you. By the way, I just got your books A city refracted and The inner city from the library. Excellent!
@@PhotoConversations It's the Stellenbosch University library, so that makes it a bit less surprising I guess. I love both, but especially enjoyed going through 'Refracted' this morning. Lovely essay by Leon de Kock too.
I very much enjoy all these videos. Very well produced, super lucid, and informative. I do have reservations at times about the narration, in particular certain cliched notions of the artistic process. For instance, the statement that an artist has to first “decide what they want to express” assumes that the material or subject or feeling to be expressed is already there inside the artist and only needs a channel (techniques, forms, methods) to “get out.” This is in contrast to the idea that feelings etc. are in fact discovered or even created in the act of expression itself, a process much more alive than mere transmission of something already known.
Hi Cindy I agree with your comments - the creative process is always a balance between, conceptualising, doing and allowing space for the non-linear. Sometimes one needs a basic plan to get one out of the house - there is no reason to stick to the plan.
having ostensibly put my camera away for the better part of 40 years, while I concentrated on a career building businesses, it is a great pleasure to be inspired by your conversations on great photographers, thank you Graeme. May I ask, have you made a video focused on the work and life of Fan Ho? I cannot see him featured in your back list?
I don't understand beauty. That said, his photography that you showed is quite similar to some of mine. We don't have mountains, but I have photos of dead trees become logs, stumps, rural urban through to city urban. I shoot the light.
I have to admit that I am not moved by Robert Adams's work. It does not speak to me the way Ansel Adams's work does on one end of the spectrum and Eggleston's does on the other. I also struggle with his philosophy on urban and suburban expansion. I don't like it either. I think it is ugly and often cold and artless. But that is my opinion, not a moral imperative. If humans are important, and in my opinion humans are the most important, they have to have somewhere to live, thrive and grow. Sure, some expansion and industry is exploitive. But to label tract housing as "inhuman" seems to utterly fail to grasp how many people around the world live, in both the third world and the industrialized world. A stand alone single family home would seem wonderful to a family living in corrugated tin shacks in Sao Paulo or a Stalin era apartment block in Moscow. To call it inhumane without offering a viable alternative seems a bit naive. To label all expansion as "destruction" is also not really fair. Some is. But not all. The world changes and it is changed by its creatures. It is not logically sound to pick a specific time in the history of the planet and pronounce it good and that altering it from that isolated time in history is bad. Who gets to choose when everything was just right? This is a particularly prickly question on the eastern seaboard of the US where the native Americans burned vast tracts of land for their various purposes, altering it forever.This occurred centuries before Europeans arrived. We have an idea that 500 years ago the east was somehow in a stable pristine state and it was ruined by European settlers. This has never been true.
It may be apocryphal, but some great composer supposedly said about Beethoven, "you have no idea how his footsteps echo in our heads." In American landscape photography, Robert Adams' work carries a similar force. You are helping so many with these short gorgeous intelligent videos. Thank you.
"Robert Adams is a soft spoken, understated man who radiates a quiet intelligence and an earthy spirituality" I think these words describe you as well .... Cheers for the wonderful tutelage!
That is extremely kind. Thanks
Light, Light, Light . . . that is something I hammered into my students over the years. Light As Subject cannot be overemphasized. The quiet beauty of Adams's photographs is a reminder to us all to slow down, breathe, look carefully and live in the quiet in-between moments. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Hi John It's strange that light isn't the first port of call - but luckily for your students, it is.
Thank you for all the incredible efforts you put into this.
Light - the beauty, the power, the elegance and the absolute necessity of the active presence of Light in the photograph.
The landscape in all forms is there in plain sight just in front of us. Most do not see it. When we see it we experience everyday wonders everywhere... 😊
Excellent video, I'm a big fan of Adams work and his approach. Thank you Graeme.
Recently, since the death of Richard Serra, it struck me that the artists of my life are nearing the end of their lives. Robert Adams, Lee Friedlander, Josef Koudelka, Philip Glass, David Hockney, William Eggleston, and for some reason Adams photographs describe this feeling of life being finite more than anyone else
Yes, he is also so eloquent when he talks about photography. Watch out of a new video on his book, 'Beauty in Photography'
I always thought that the New Topographics, was all about criticism of the influence of man on the environment.
It's nice to see that Adams did appreciate and see the beauty in these landscapes.
I grew up with this idea that nature has to be pure, with no human influence.
For a long time this kept me from fully appreciating the beauty of the highly populated country I live in (the Netherlands).
Many of my fellow countrymen believe that you have to go abroad to see real nature.....it's really sad they are blind to what can be found here.
Tough questions being asked here - by Adams and you! A post-beauty world is a modern prospect and a conceivable reality. Hard to undo. Wow, Adams is such a subtle communicator - thanks for the 'starter for ten.'
Hi James Yes, he comes across in such an understated way - definitely not made for the TikTok generation.
That was glorious!
Thanks. It was meant as a poem of gratitude to a photographer that I greatly appreciate.
@@PhotoConversations I certainly felt that way too! Thanks again.
Graeme, THANK YOU for covering one of the most influential photographer of the XXth century. Robert Adams is such a contrast to another famous Adams. I much prefer Robert’s landscapes rather than Ansel’s.
Thanks for this Graeme, I know many don't know and understand the work of Robert Adams (at least here in Europe), great you covered him here, a great photographer of our time
Hi Ralf I would have thought that his work was well-known everywhere. Even so, traces of his aesthetic show through in a lot of European photography. So even if they don't know it, he is very present.
@@PhotoConversations I'd say in the photography scene yes. Steidl, the most prestigious photobook publisher in Germany published many (all?) of his photo books and I've heard 'The New West' is considered for reprinting. But in the public his name is unknown I'd say, unlike Ansel Adams or Robert Frank for example
@@ralf.mueller Yes, I think that you are right.
Thanks for this excellent video … a fine insight into a thoughtful and inspirational photographer. As it happens, I came across my favourite tree while riding my bicycle. I’ve photographed it on several occasions in different seasons and conditions and look forward to going back to it on future bicycle rides. 📷🚴♂️🙂 PS: I always have my Fuji X100V with me now on bicycle rides using the PS Bagworks rider strap and a JJC neoprene camera case. I prefer black and white JPEG (Acros) landscapes and endeavour to capture as near to final an image as possible in the moment.
Hi Grenville That's a great project. best of luck.
Another excellent video. Thank you for producing these
Really interesting, insightful and intelligent video on probably the photographer I find is the most inspirational to me, not just for his work but also his humanity. I often go through his books and get lost in them. HIs work is not for everyone, but for those that it resonates with, it resonates strongly.
You can probably hear, that I deeply appreciate his work and who he is as a person.
My pursuit has always been nature, landscape, inspiring architecture, subjects I hold close. After so many road trips in search for this harmony and beauty, I have found it has succumbed to corporate asphalt and concrete, countless strip malls, dried up ground cover, payday loans, gas stations, ugliness that defines the modern human environment. Where once trees, flowers, clean water, birds and animals existed. Yet people endure in it, I endure and suffer in it. It pervades our landscape and is ever expanding, I cannot determine why. I have started to photograph this demoralizing landscape and its human conditions, it's the only way I can come to terms with it. Many do not like seeing the photographs. So I find this video and Robert Adams, whom I've heard of, but not experienced his work. Thank you for this video, it is a coincidence I'm glad to find, and see that another artist has seen and dealt with also. Yes, I know many will disagree with my experience,.
Hi Steve I'm sure Robert Adams and the work of the other New Topographic photographers will help to make your pursuit less lonely.
I’m very much enjoyed that. Thank you 🙏
I always can depend on you to provide a sensitive and multilayered perspective on a photographer. In my area of Texas we have "heritage trees" which are protected rather than destroyed. It is a small step but a hopeful one.
Hi Jim Maybe we are learning as a species, but we are terribly slow.
What a great video.
RS. Canada
sono un giovane fotografo italiano e grazie ai tuoi video sto imparando tanto, grazie!
Hi Geremia Sono felice che trovi utili i video. Grazie per il feedback.
Great video about a fantastic photographer, thank you. By the way, I just got your books A city refracted and The inner city from the library. Excellent!
That's a shocker - which library? I wouldn't have thought that they made it to the library.
@@PhotoConversations It's the Stellenbosch University library, so that makes it a bit less surprising I guess. I love both, but especially enjoyed going through 'Refracted' this morning. Lovely essay by Leon de Kock too.
I very much enjoy all these videos. Very well produced, super lucid, and informative.
I do have reservations at times about the narration, in particular certain cliched notions of the artistic process. For instance, the statement that an artist has to first “decide what they want to express” assumes that the material or subject or feeling to be expressed is already there inside the artist and only needs a channel (techniques, forms, methods) to “get out.” This is in contrast to the idea that feelings etc. are in fact discovered or even created in the act of expression itself, a process much more alive than mere transmission of something already known.
Hi Cindy I agree with your comments - the creative process is always a balance between, conceptualising, doing and allowing space for the non-linear. Sometimes one needs a basic plan to get one out of the house - there is no reason to stick to the plan.
having ostensibly put my camera away for the better part of 40 years, while I concentrated on a career building businesses, it is a great pleasure to be inspired by your conversations on great photographers, thank you Graeme. May I ask, have you made a video focused on the work and life of Fan Ho? I cannot see him featured in your back list?
Hi thanks. Ni I haven't done one yet on Fan Ho, but he is high on my list.
I don't understand beauty.
That said, his photography that you showed is quite similar to some of mine.
We don't have mountains, but I have photos of dead trees become logs, stumps, rural urban through to city urban.
I shoot the light.
Yes, it is a word that has lost its meaning. I like his description - Using light and creating form of a scene.
@@PhotoConversations I'm autistic. That has particular implications for my place in the world.
I have to admit that I am not moved by Robert Adams's work. It does not speak to me the way Ansel Adams's work does on one end of the spectrum and Eggleston's does on the other.
I also struggle with his philosophy on urban and suburban expansion. I don't like it either. I think it is ugly and often cold and artless. But that is my opinion, not a moral imperative. If humans are important, and in my opinion humans are the most important, they have to have somewhere to live, thrive and grow. Sure, some expansion and industry is exploitive. But to label tract housing as "inhuman" seems to utterly fail to grasp how many people around the world live, in both the third world and the industrialized world. A stand alone single family home would seem wonderful to a family living in corrugated tin shacks in Sao Paulo or a Stalin era apartment block in Moscow. To call it inhumane without offering a viable alternative seems a bit naive. To label all expansion as "destruction" is also not really fair. Some is. But not all. The world changes and it is changed by its creatures. It is not logically sound to pick a specific time in the history of the planet and pronounce it good and that altering it from that isolated time in history is bad. Who gets to choose when everything was just right?
This is a particularly prickly question on the eastern seaboard of the US where the native Americans burned vast tracts of land for their various purposes, altering it forever.This occurred centuries before Europeans arrived. We have an idea that 500 years ago the east was somehow in a stable pristine state and it was ruined by European settlers. This has never been true.