No region of the world has been photographed more than the American Southwest. This is probably because the setting is so odd and otherworldly—orange desert punctured by jutting rock. The irony, of course, is that the SW’s unlikely geological formations have been photographed so much that they no longer appear strange. Most of us have seen the ‘Delicate Arch’ in Utah more times than we’ve seen an actual person from Utah.
Robert Adams has spent his life making the SW interesting again. On April 14th he was awarded the 2009 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in recognition of his efforts. Following in the celluloidal footsteps of Carlton Watkins and that other famous Adams, the seventy-one-year-old photographer has produced some of the most lovely and memorable images of America’s desertland. Like Stephen Shore, or Bernd and Hilla Becher, all of whom belong to a loose school of landscape photographers known as the ‘The New Topographics,’ Adams depicts the human-touched landscape; images like Outdoor Theater, Colorado Springs, 1968, show us as much of the natural world as they do man’s encroachment on it.
Adams has already won Guggenheim and MacArthur awards, and one suspects that with another prize under his belt he may need to let out an inseam. As often happens with artists of immense popularity, Adams’ name no longer denotes only his own work, but refers to a style, an approach to photography. Influence, after all, is the true emblem of success—awards are just polite acknowledgements.
