The Sea Beach 2015

Robert Adams made this gelatin silver print called The Sea Beach. I wonder what it was like to be there on that beach with Adams. The lone figure in the distance makes me think of Caspar David Friedrich. This could be a Romantic landscape, but instead it's got this stump in the foreground, more like a gravestone than a tree. It’s stark, ruined, and kind of sad. The tonal range is incredible. Adams coaxes so much out of gray, light, and shadow. I bet he was really careful in the darkroom to get these subtle gradations. He's using photography almost like charcoal, pulling out textures, from the wood grain of the stump to the ripples in the sand, all the way to the horizon. It's like he's feeling it, not just seeing it. Photography can be like painting; you make a series of decisions. He decided to include that lone figure. What if he hadn't? I think that figure is the key to the whole thing.