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August 24, 2004
I will be on the road for a couple of days travelling through the Barossa and Clare Valleys in South Australia looking at the issues of water and wineries.
Two photos from William Clift of the western landscape in the US. Clift is a large-format photographer.
William Clift,Factory Butte, Utah, 1985
Some see this kind of work as romantic nostalgia of the American landscape. I don't. This landscape is very familar in Australia.
William Clift, Desert Form #1, New Mexico
The problem is that in Australia we do not have many Australians doing this kind of photographic work. This kind of work--a celebration of the desert landscape ----forms a very powerful tradition in the US.
The landscape tradition that William Clift works in celebrates the beauty and vastness of the wilderness. It stands in opposition to the destruction of the land by industrial capitalism.
Clift published a book called Certain Places.
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I have a signed copy of the book Certain PLaces, and have always loved the images, are you aware of Robert Adams, Mark Klett, Richard Misrach et el? These guys are some of main inspirations and on a recent visit to the states where we drove though some of the desert these guys make images in was blown away by the landscape we saw. It, the desert, is somehow different I feel? Maybe it's the light or the way there are cities distributed across the country unlike Australia where we have an east coast peppered with the majority of the population?