Santa Ana River, San Bernardino County, California Possibly 1982 - 1999

This is a photograph of the Santa Ana River in San Bernardino County, California, by Robert Adams. The grey-scale palette here creates a stillness. You get a sense of open space, and yet, there is also something claustrophobic in the frame, and the way that the bridge dissects the image. It’s a photograph, so the texture is going to be very different than a painting, but it does have a palpable surface, a dryness to it that mirrors the parched landscape it depicts. Look at the bridge itself: it’s monumental in form, and yet, it's dissolving into the stark light of the Californian sky. This image reminds me of the Bechers and their photographic typologies. Like them, Adams is invested in how the forms of modern life have altered the landscape. But unlike them, Adams also searches for a kind of melancholy beauty amidst the ruins. There is an ongoing conversation here about how we shape – and are shaped by – the world around us.