Expressway, near Colton, California 1982

Robert Adams made this photograph, Expressway, near Colton, California, using black and white film, and it’s all about how he frames the world. It’s like he’s saying, "Hey, look at this too!" The tonal range is really beautiful, shifting between dark foreground and pale background. The trees seem to want to obscure the view, but through their silhouettes, we see the world beyond: a highway, some buildings, signs of human life. It's a push and pull, right? Like a painter using thin washes of grey, Adams coaxes out a feeling of melancholy and reflection on the relationship between nature and urbanization. It reminds me a little of the Bechers, with their typologies of industrial structures, but Adams is more poetic, less objective. He’s showing us how the landscape is constructed, both naturally and artificially, and how we are part of that construction too. There’s no right answer, just different ways of seeing.