Weld County, Colorado Possibly 1981 - 1987

Robert Adams made this gelatin silver print of Weld County, Colorado. It’s a landscape, but not in the chocolate box sense. It's all about the grey scale, a real study in understated tones. There's a beautiful band of grey, where the land meets the sky. It's a soft, almost hazy line that suggests distance. The sky itself is full of these big, puffy clouds, like giant cotton balls. Then, lower down, the land is covered in scrubby little bushes, each casting a tiny shadow. It’s a study in minimalism; Adams isn't trying to impress you with grand gestures. It feels like you're standing there, feeling the wind on your face. Think about Bernd and Hilla Becher, those German photographers who documented industrial structures. Adams has that same eye for the mundane, finding beauty in the everyday. It invites us to slow down and really look.