Adjacent Fields, Washington,

1991, printed 1996

In 1980, Emmet Gowin began taking aerial photographs of the natural landscape, creating works that combine documentary realism with formal abstraction. Gowin found the aerial perspective appealing because it gave the viewer a new vantage point on landscapes that were often overlooked. This photograph depicts a series of agricultural fi elds in Washington State. See from above, the fi elds lose their specifi city but gain an abstract geometry. On the transformation of nature by human beings, Gowin once said: “among the powerful forces shaping modern life, agriculture on the industrial scale was contributing much to our age and was itself an element of the cold war in its overuse of the resources on which life depends.”