“ARTISTS KEEP INTACT AN AFFECTION FOR LIFE”: FIRST EDITION OF ROBERT ADAMS’ WHY PEOPLE PHOTOGRAPH

ADAMS, Robert. Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews. (New York): Aperture, (1994). Octavo, original half ivory cloth, white paper-covered boards, original dust jacket. $350.

First edition of this collection of essays on artistic method, great photographers, and working conditions in landscape photography.

Robert Adams stands at the forefront of the “New Topographers,” photographers seeking to “subvert the traditional romantic landscape genre” and its mythology of the American West (Roth, 226). His work addresses the broadest themes of American history. In this collection of essays, Adams asserts that most artists understand themselves to be bound to the world by complex and important obligations—“they keep intact an affection for life.” He further asks photographers “to bring into being an awareness that is as much ethical as it is visual” (New York Times). With chapters on Weston, Strand, Ansel Adams, Lange, Atget and others. See Roth, 226; Parr & Badger II, 43; Open Book, 364.

Fine condition.