Longmont, Colorado 1982 - 1992

Robert Adams made this gelatin silver print, "Longmont, Colorado", and the range of tones in it are so subtle, from the bleached-out whites of the blossom to the deep grain in the wood. Photography, like painting, is about making marks, decisions of light and shade, arranging things within a border. It's a process. The texture of the wood is amazing; you can almost feel it. There are so many vertical lines and that knot in the plank on the left is like a little eye staring back at you. It is all so beautifully balanced. And then, bam! There's that horizontal plank at the top with the words; ‘A house for wisdom; a field for revelation’. It's heavy, like a thought. Adams reminds me of another photographer, Walker Evans, in the way that both find the extraordinary in the ordinary. For Adams, like Evans, the world is full of meaning if you just know how to look.