Thoughts on Landscape

Book excerpt: Frank Gohlke has been a leading figure in American landscape photography for thirty years. Photographing grain silos in Minnesota, the aftermaths of a tornado in Texas and the Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington, and a river¿s quiet course in Massachusetts, his is a career of deep, unbroken contemplation of the land, and of our livelihood and survival within it. And for nearly as long as Gohlke has been photographing the landscape, he has also been writing about it.In the spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson's seminal book, The Mind¿s Eye, and Robert Adams's Beauty in Photography, Gohlke¿s writings span from the philosophical to the personal. Throughout is his abiding sense of curiosity, an affection for and loyalty to his subject, and an uncanny ability to convey the richness of his experience to readers. In this collected volume, Gohlke¿s talent for photographing the landscape proves rivaled only by his talent for writing about it.