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Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts Fall/Winter 2001, Volume 28, No. 2 Not Landscape : Fragments + Metaphors Editors: Marnie Gillett, Trena Noval, Jane Levy Reed Table of Contents • In This Issue $8 each (no discount) [Add to Cart]   table of contents 1. In This Issue Marnie Gillett 4. Sunset at a Lake: Looking for Landscape Photography in the New Millennium Ellen Handy 12. Landscape as Idea Diana Gaston 18. Are we Photographs? Doug Harvey 22. Portfolio Jo Babcock, Scott Davis, Lukas Felzmann, Catherine Gfeller, Abelardo Morell, Orit Raff 34. Exhibition Review Todd Hido: New Photographs at Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco Berin Golonu 36. Book Reviews Vik Muniz / Clayton Days Carrie Mae Weems / The Hampton Project April Watson 38. Screen Grab: The Net Bazaar Software and Bodies are Culture: An Interview with Graham Harwood Rachel Greene 40. In the Gallery Recent Exhibitions at SF Camerawork 44. Books Received and Noted Chuck Mobley and Mary Wilson in this issue Not Landscape: Fragments + Metaphors by Marnie Gillett, Trena Noval, Jane Levy Reed In this issue of Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts, we explore how we visualize and depict the natural world-in particular the landscape. Traditionally, landscape photography as represented by Ansel Adams and his predecessors, Carleton Watkins and Timothy O'Sullivan, can be viewed as a visual manifestation of America's promise. Representations of the pristine wilderness became emblematic of a nation prided on rugged individualism and yet constantly in search of a common ideal. Adams attempted to impart that ideal in his sweeping vistas of Yosemite and unerring photographic technique. In fact the legacy of Ansel Adams cannot be underestimated. The popularity of his photographs makes him the most widely recognized photographer in America today. But the primacy and influence of his approach has also inevitably pushed contemporary photographers to seek out new ways of considering the landscape. As development and encroachment have endangered our natural environment, so too have revised histories of colonial expansion West forced us to reexamine our understanding and relationship to the land. Because of this imperative, our contemporary sensibilities are perhaps no longer accurately reflected in the hierarchical tradition of Ansel Adams’s pristine wilderness photographs. Landscape, it seems, has become for us as much a conception in the mind as it is a place. Essays by Ellen Handy, Diana Gaston, and Doug Harvey all explore how contemporary artists are giving expression to this more conceptualized landscape. The work discussed in these essays, like the portfolio section of works by artists in our current gallery exhibition, Not Landscape: Fragments and Metaphors, presents a more personalized—if not fictionalized—view. What you may ultimately discover is that landscape, however redefined, is an essential part of our collective social conscience. It is worth noting that this year marks the centennial anniversary of Ansel Adams’s birth. To celebrate the occasion, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art asked other Bay Area art organizations to consider mounting exhibitions in collaboration with their show Ansel Adams at 100, curated by John Szarkowski. In honor of Ansel Adams, we are pleased to participate in this celebration by curating the exhibition Not Landscape: Fragments and Metaphors and dedicating this issue of the Journal to contemporary landscape photography. Marnie Gillett, Trena Noval, Jane Levy Reed, editors home | about | exhibitions | bookstore | events | membership | journal | mentoring | links Copyright 2002. SF Camerawork. All Rights Reserved.