Visit to an Oil Field in Purissima Hills, USA Possibly 1908

Geldolph Adriaan Kessler took this photograph, "Visit to an Oil Field in Purissima Hills, USA", with a camera, sometime in the early 20th century. The limited palette, almost entirely grayscale, throws the focus on the textures and forms depicted, doesn't it? It highlights the wood grain, the rough-hewn timber of the oil derrick, and the parched grass in the foreground. The composition itself has a rough-and-ready feel, a document of the industrial landscape. The timbers of the structure crisscross at all angles, creating a web-like effect that is broken by the ground and the men who stand on the main platform. It’s the kind of photo that lets you feel the dust in the air, the grease on the machinery, and the relentless, slow violence we inflict upon the land. It reminds me of some of the stark photographs taken by Walker Evans during the same era, but with less emphasis on the human element. I’m left with a sense of art as a conversation, artists working in parallel, responding to the world around them with their own language. It's not one thing, ever. It's a cloud of different things.