Coos County, Oregon 1999 - 2002

Curator: Well, that’s stark. Just look at this Robert Adams photograph, taken between 1999 and 2002, titled *Coos County, Oregon*. It hits you right away, doesn’t it? Editor: It does. An initial reaction? Overwhelming sadness. A flattened landscape of splintered matter. Like the earth is exhaling grief. The monochrome palette intensifies that desolation, focusing your eye on textures, the cut of the logs, the skeletal branches reaching towards a gray sky. Curator: Adams certainly wasn't afraid of showing us what we were doing to the land. His work, especially this image, examines the environmental impact of the timber industry. What do you see beyond the initial emotional reaction? Editor: I'm drawn to the idea of process. The chain saws, the logging trucks, the economic engine driving all of this destruction. It's not just a natural landscape; it's a *produced* one, isn't it? One shaped by human labor, market forces, and the relentless consumption of resources. Curator: Exactly! It's landscape and labor presented in a single frame. But it’s also about layers. See how the tree stumps contrast with the newer growth that has cropped up between? I almost feel as though this specific angle makes me believe that things will come back, even with how chaotic it appears. Is it the picture of full recovery? Of course not. Editor: The stumps are silent monuments, aren't they? Echoes of what was. And yes, that scraggly new growth; nature's stubborn insistence. But what about the people involved, the communities that rely on timber? What kind of policies resulted in such devastation? Whose voices are missing here? Curator: All pertinent questions. It invites a complex discussion; and perhaps more broadly than logging itself. We are a nation of consumers and excess and images like this are a challenge to it, as brutal and somber as it seems. It requires a long hard look. Editor: Brutal and somber, indeed. A call to interrogate not only our desires but also the systems of production that enable them. Thanks to this image, one leaves contemplative, pondering the relationship between consumption, labor and nature’s ability to endure.