Longmont, Colorado 1982 - 1992

Robert Adams made this photograph, Longmont, Colorado, with a camera and film, capturing a moment in time. There’s this dog, right up close, almost confrontational in its softness. Its fur is like a cloud, all tangled and blurred. Behind, everything's a bit of a mess. Barbed wire, flowers, weeds, trees. The contrast between soft and hard is really speaking to me, like a metaphor for life in general. I can imagine Adams walking around, looking for a shot, probably thinking about the contrast between the natural and the man-made. Did the dog just happen to be there, or did Adams position it deliberately? The dog is the softest thing in the frame, but it's still behind a fence. Like, what's that about? I feel like he might be looking at the New Topographics photographers like Bernd and Hilla Becher who were showing the geometry of industrial landscapes. Adams is inviting us to consider the details, to find beauty and meaning in the overlooked. It's like he's saying, ‘Hey, even in the midst of all this, there’s something worth seeing.’