Clatsop Beach, Oregon 1999

Editor: We're looking at Robert Adams' "Clatsop Beach, Oregon," a gelatin-silver print from 1999. It’s a scene in monochrome, very still and quiet, with a strange feeling of melancholy. What do you see in this piece, how does it strike you? Curator: Melancholy is a wonderful word for it. It’s the way Adams frames the ordinary, almost banal scene – the campers, the lone figure on the beach, that beaten-up truck – and finds this almost unbearable beauty. It reminds me of those fleeting moments when you’re driving, maybe listening to sad music, and the world just...aches. Know what I mean? It's a bit funny, but almost holy. Editor: Absolutely! The 'ordinariness' is almost staged, isn’t it? Do you think Adams is making a statement about the human impact on these natural landscapes? Curator: He’s not hitting us over the head with it, is he? But yeah, for me, Adams is about observing, deeply, what happens when the wild collides with the everyday. That beach is ancient, vast... and then we park RVs on it. It's not judgmental, not overtly environmentalist, just...here it is. Isn’t it something? What does it spark in you, thinking about our place in things? Editor: I hadn't considered it that way! I’ve mostly focused on formal things: composition and lighting and the grayscale—but considering the scene's narrative and its commentary on us certainly lends another perspective to consider it. It's thought-provoking. Curator: That tension, that slight discomfort, that’s where the magic lies. Keep looking, keep feeling, and you might just surprise yourself! I’ll never forget that image.